الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes significant pain and disability. About 90% of RA patients rate pain as one of their top three priorities. On a population level, mean pain ratings have remained the same over the past 20 year period, and 82% of RA patients who consider their disease to be ”somewhat to completely controlled” continue to report moderate to severe levels of pain. Serotonin (5 hydroxytryptamine) (5-HT) is an important neurotransmitter that besides its involvement in a large central nervous system processes also regulates many physiological functions and displays immune modulatory effects. It also has role in modulating of pain sensation in RA patients. The aim of our study is to estimate level of serotonin in seropositive and seronegative RA, and correlate serotonin with disease duration, disease activity scores, radiographic score, articular damage score, and associated fibromyalgia. We selected eighty patients with RA attending the rheumatology and rehabilitation department Kasr El Aini Hospital, Cairo university; they are diagnosed according to the 2010 American college of rheumatology / european League against Rheumatism classification criteria for rheumatoid arthritis. They are divided into two groups the first group is consist of forty patients with seronegative RF(Female 90%, Male 10%) and the second group is consist of forty patients with seropositive RF (Female 85%, Male 15%). Age and sex matched eighty healthy subjects were included in the study as a control group |