Circulating leptin and bone mineral density in rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To evaluate the association between circulating leptin and bone mineral density (BMD) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: One-hundred thirty postmenopausal women with RA were assessed for body mass index (BMI), disease characteristics, history of drug use, rheumatoid factor, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). BMD (g/cm(2)) was determined in the hip and spine by DEXA.

Circulating E-selectin and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in extraarticular involvement and joint disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis.

In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the relationship between circulating TNF-alpha and E-selectin (sE-selectin) with extraarticular involvement and severity of joint disease in RA. We compared 56 patients who had RA and extraarticular involvement (ExRA) with a group of 84 patients with only articular involvement (non-ExRA). ExRA had higher circulating TNF-alpha than non-ExRA (32 +/- 9 vs.