Study of trace elements in patients with rheumatoid arthritis stage I-II, before and after treatment

The study of the copper, zinc, iron and magnesium serum values in 35 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) stage I-II, before and after therapy with indocin, gold salts and transfer factor showed a significant increase of copper to 129-340 gamma/100 ml, mean value 214.6 gamma/100 ml as compared with 65-145 gamma/100 ml, mean value 107.6 gamma/100 ml in the controls. The values of serum copper were found to evaluate with the severity of diseases returning to normal values in the patients with good response to therapy. In disagreement with some authors who found decreases of serum zinc in the course of rheumatoid arthritis, in our study the values obtained did not vary significantly as compared to normal (mean value 119 gamma/100 ml in RA as compared with 94.7 gamma/100 ml in the controls). The decrease of iron and magnesium serum concentration was also found nonsignificant in the patients with RA investigated. The results are discussed in terms of physiopathology.