It was generally admitted that there was no specific rheumatoid lesion in the kidney and that most renal disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was usually linked to amyloid or secondary effects of drugs. Nevertheless, the necropsy study of Boerset al had shown that 19.7% of RA patients had a glomerulonephritis (GN) at death.1 Recent review of renal biopsy findings in RA patients showed that the most common histopathological finding was mesangial GN followed by amyloidosis and membranous GN.2 ,3 To evaluate the renal involvement in Chinese patients with RA, a short retrospective clinical study was performed from data of 1468 inpatients of a rheumatology section from 1984 to 1996. Patients having transient mild proteinuria, haematuria or both were not included in the current analysis. Only RA patients with persistent abnormality of haematuria (at least 4 RBC/high power field in two consecutive urine samples), …