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Joint pain (arthralgia/ arthritis) is associated with various physical conditions and various rheumatic or non-rheumatic diseases. Rheumatoid factor (RF) and antinuclear antibody (ANA) are good markers of screening for rheumatic diseases. However, there are many rheumatic diseases in which either RF or ANA is not demonstrated in patients' sera. Therefore, it is important to precisely inquire about the patients' past history and present illness precisely and perform a careful physical examination in order to achieve the proper diagnosis.
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Kobayashi et al. (2005) studied this question.
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