Abstract

 


Objectives: This study has been conducted to compare serum nitric oxide (nitrite and nitrate) levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and healthy volunteers and also to explore the correlation between these levels and the disease activity parameters.

Materials and methods: In this study we included 35 patients with RA who admitted to outpatient clinics of the department of PM&R and met 1987-ARA-Diagnostic Criteria according to clinical and laboratory findings. We included 30 healthy individuals as control group who were matched with patient group according to age and sex. We compared serum nitric oxide (NO) levels of patient with RA and control group and we divided patient's group into two groups according to serum ESR and CRP values as active and inactive to determine the correlation between serum NO (nitrite and nitrate) levels and disease activity.significantly higher in RA patients than the control group (p