Rheumatoid Arthritis Essay

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that can cause swelling, stiffness and pain of joints, primarily in an individual’s small joints in their hands and feet. An autoimmune disease is the result of antibodies from a person’s immune system attacking their own healthy cells. Many autoimmune diseases act in various different manners and one of the rare similarities is the ability to clinically diagnose a disease based on the presence of autoantibodies in a serum. When these autoantibodies begin to seek out and attack healthy cells or tissue, the individual will suffer from inflammation. “In rheumatoid arthritis, the focus of the inflammation is in the synovium, the tissue that lines the joint” (Ruderman & Tambar, 2013) yet, the chemicals
This is an autoantibody, most likely an IgM class that attacks the Fc region of an IgG antibody. “Research initiated by Cecil, Nichols, and Stainsby (1931), Waaler (1940), and Rose, Ragan, Pearce, and Lipman (1949) on the agglutinating activity of serum from patients with rheumatoid arthritis led to the discovery of a serum factor, now regarded as characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis, and therefore designated “rheumatoid factor”” (Wholer, Muller & Hofmann, 1960). The biomarker can be developed in healthy individuals during acute infectious diseases so the presence of the factor can be misleading. Multiple tests to confirm a high titer of the autoantibody are usually done after the infection has passed to confirm a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. The presence can be less in the beginning stages of the disease then rise after an individual has had the illness for some time. Therefore, rheumatoid factor is not a cause of the disease but an indication that is useful in making a medical identification of a problem. It is a way to recognize the disease beyond just basic symptoms of paint, joint stiffness and