Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common cause of systemic inflammatory arthritis which causes joint destruction. The pathogenesis of RA is not fully understood, but it seems imbalance between oxidant and antioxidant process, plays a significant role on it. As a result, suppression of these mechanisms would be helpful to subside inflammation and eventually control of the disease activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of oxidant and antioxidant and their effects on disease

more »

... activity in RA patients. Methods In the following case-control study, we evaluated the levels of Malondialdehyde (MDA) and oxidized Low-Density Lipoproteins (ox.LDL) as oxidative factors and Catalase (CAT), Glutathione Peroxide (GSH-Px) and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) as antioxidants. Also tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α, Interleukin (IL) 1β and IL6 were measured as inflammatory factors. Results 43 RA patients and 43 healthy people were enrolled. Significant differences were found in the average levels of MDA, ox.LDL, CAT, GPX, SOD, TNFα, IL1beta and IL6 between two groups (p-value < 0.001), but we did not find any significant differences between two groups of patients based on DAS28 (p-value> 0.05). Conclusion The results of our study showed that there were increased oxidative activities in RA patients in comparison to the control group which indicated the presence of inflammatory process causing cellular damage in the patients group. As a consequence, adding some antioxidant agents to RA treatment might have some advantages for the disease control. Based on our findings, it seems that the oxidative process did not have any effect on the 4 disease severity. We also suggest further observational study to confirm the results.