الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most prevalent inflammatory arthropathy that affects about 0.5%–1% of the world’s population with a mean annual incidence of 0.02%–0.05%. The disease affects all races with high incidence in female. It is a chronic heterogeneous autoimmune disease characterized by articular and systemic manifestations including the cardiovascular, pulmonary, and digestive systems (Mahdy et al., 2014). The articular manifestation is due to the long-standing chronic inflammation of multiple joints with proliferation of synovial cells and accumulation of inflammatory cells including macrophages and lymphocytes, production of inflammatory cytokines, and angiogenesis. This results in symmetric polyarthritis with progressive joint, cartilage and bone damage leading to joint deformity, disability, and premature mortality (Abdel Ghafar et al., 2020). Several factors are involved in the persistent immunological response that is central to the pathogenesis of RA, including genetic, infectious, environmental, and hormonal factors. Unbalance of adaptive and innate immune systems driving the excessive immune responses is observed in RA (Li et al., 2014). |