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The aim of the investigation was to study the immunological characteristics of RA patients with anaemia. Clinical and laboratory data including the percentage of the main lymphocyte subclasses, phagocyte and DTH-effector activity, serum concentration of immunoglobulins, the percentage of cells producing IFNγ and/or IL-4 and percent of monocytes producing TNF. We revealed some significant clinical, laboratory and immunological differences between RA patients and healthy donors and between patients with and without anaemia. Our data demonstrate RA anemic patients to have more severe disorders than patients without anaemia. We also revealed some significant immunological differences between RA patients and healthy donors and between patients with and without anaemia, including percent of cells producing IFNγ and/or IL-4. Our data permit to conclude that RA patients have many different immunological disturbances, more severe in anaemic patients.

The article contains results concerning combination frequency analysis for a wide number of three- to six-locus constellations of cytokine gene alleles, i.e., IL-1B T-31C, IL-6 G-174C, TNFA G-238A, TNFA G-308A, TNFA C-863A, IL-4 C-590T, IL-10 C-592A. The study was performed in a group of 104 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were subject to basic therapy with methotrexate. An association was found between certain individual multi-locus allele combinations, and efficiency of the therapy, as defined by decrease in DAS28 index following 24 week of methotrexate treatment. An association was demonstrated between adverse effects of drugs used, and a "cytokine genotype" of the patients. Analysis of the results was carried out with respect to correlations between the levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine production and promoter polymorphisms of respective genes. We assume that further clinical research will allow to use our results as pharmacogenetic criteria in order to choose more effective personalized therapies, taking into account the genotypes of RA patients.