TY - JOUR T1 - Does the season at symptom onset influence the long-term severity of radiographic joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis? JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - 2055 LP - 2056 DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2012-201565 VL - 71 IS - 12 AU - D P C de Rooy AU - M L E Andersson AU - R Knevel AU - T W J Huizinga AU - B Svensson AU - A H M van der Helm-van Mil Y1 - 2012/12/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/71/12/2055.abstract N2 - Season-associated environmental factors have been related to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and the severity of joint complaints.1 ,2 A recent study demonstrated that the onset of arthritis symptoms during winter or spring was associated with more radiographic joint damage after 1 year.3 This led us to evaluate the influence of the season of symptom onset on long-term radiographic progression. Six hundred and eighty-eight RA-patients, from the Leiden Early Arthritis Clinic (EAC) and 830 RA-patients from the Swedish BARFOT-study were included in the study.4 ,5 These cohorts were similar in the percentage of women patients, age, symptom duration, swollen joint count, C reactive protein and the percentage of anti-cyclic citrullinated protein antibody positive patients (data not shown). During a follow-up period of 5 and 7 years, a total of 6990 hands and feet x-ray sets were obtained and scored for joint damage according to the Sharp-van-der-Heijde method ( all … ER -