Bone demineralization in rheumatoid arthritis

In a group of 210 patients with various stages of rheumatoid arthritis divided according to mobility in 3 groups the highest clavicular cortico-diaphyseal indices were found in the group of exercising patients and the lowest results were in the immobilized group. Double measurements repeated after two years allowed us to establish the annlay loss of cortical bone in each group: -2.19% in the exercising group, -6% in the non-exercising group and -8.94% in the immobilized group. Studying the effect of corticosteroids used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in another group of 153 patients we found lower results of cortical thickness only in dependence on daily dose of this drug and not on the whole used dose. The computed annual loss of cortical bone thickness was 7% in patients on doses 5-10 mg of prednisolone, while in patients on doses 12.5-20 mg of prednisolone the annual loss exceeded 10%.