The osteoporosis of rheumatoid arthritis

A metabolic bone disturbance has been demonstrated in all of seven patients with classical rheumatoid arthritis of six months to twenty years duration. All patients were receiving salicylate therapy alone while two had received corticosteroids four years before this study. A new quantitative and qualitative histological study of the cytodynamics of bone was used. The evidence suggests that an active diffuse demineralization was present in all patients, and was related directly to the disease process itself or to its therapy.