The current goal of treatment of early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is remission irrespective of the gender of the patient.1 However, based on studies about remission rates of male and female patients with RA, it appears that men achieve remission as assessed by the 28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28) more often than women.2 3

We have studied remission in an early RA population4 of 161 patients (107 females and 54 males, mean age 57 years, mean duration of symptoms before diagnosis 5 months, 61% rheumatoid factor (RF) positive and 32% with erosions at baseline). The patients were assessed for remission at 5 years from the diagnosis according to a strict modification of the American College …