ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2009) — During the past few years, several new genetic risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been identified. The majority of genetic risk factors identified so far have been associated with autoantibody-positive RA, which affects about two-thirds of RA patients, but distinguishing this variant from autoantibody-negative RA, which is less destructive, is considered increasingly important.
