Smoking has an adverse effect on disease progression in patients with RA. An association was also observed between smoking and those RF types that predispose to RA and have the highest diagnostic specificity for this disease.
Tobacco smoking has an adverse effect on patients with early RA and this is possibly immunologically mediated. IgM RF does not predict poorer prognosis in RA unless it is associated with a concomitant elevation of IgA RF.
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