Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 500 men and 500 women, aged 40 years and over, together with a control population matched by age and sex were followed up with respect to cause-specific mortality over a 10-year period. The overall mortality was significantly higher in both men and women with RA than in the controls. A statistically significant increase in mortality from all cardiovascular diseases (p less than 0.001) and cardiac diseases (p = 0.004) was observed in men with RA but not in women with RA compared to corresponding controls. No difference in mortality from cerebrovascular diseases was observed between RA patients and controls.