[Progression of rheumatoid arthritis]

In order to recognize courses with high and low progression in rheumatoid arthritis deviating from former approach the values of a locomotor function test were used which do not belong to the dispersion region for the adequate classes of duration of a disease. With the help of a material of an electronic data processing study of 1,000 cases with ascertained diagnosis correlations between high progression and, among others, following criteria could be ascertained: male sex, old age, early beginning of the disease, manual trades, unfavourable functional values and very much changed laboratory values including high titres of the rheumatoid factor. In this method there was no relation to the duration of the disease, as it was existing with other methods of the determination of progression which were comparatively included into the investigation.