Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with ornidazole. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

SIR, In many previous studies, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) hasbeen found at high frequencies in individuals with periodontitis,and RA resembles periodontitis in many pathological aspects[1, 2]. HLA-DR4 tissue antigens are found at high frequenciesboth in patients with periodontitis and in those with RA. HLA-DR4tissue antigens and their subtypes are directly associated witheach disease [3, 4]. High levels of oral anaerobic bacterial antibodies and heat-shockproteins have been found in the