Parity influences the severity of ACPA-negative early rheumatoid arthritis: a cohort study based on the Swedish EIRA material

In women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) it has been observed that during pregnancy a majority of patients experience amelioration, but after delivery a relapse of the disease is common. However, there are few studies, with diverging results, addressing the effect of parity on the severity of RA over time. Our aim was to explore the impact of parity, with stratification for anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) status as well as for onset during reproductive age or not. Female RA cases aged 18-70 years were recruited for the Epidemiological Investigation of Rheumatoid Arthritis (EIRA). Inf... Mehr ...