TY - JOUR T1 - Is Screening for Hepatitis Necessary in Diagnostic Evaluation of Rheumatoid Arthritis in South Korea? JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 674 LP - 675 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.090886 VL - 37 IS - 3 AU - DUCK-AN KIM AU - THINK-YOU KIM Y1 - 2010/03/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/37/3/674.abstract N2 - To the Editor:We read with interest the article by Guennoc, et al1 reporting that seroprevalences of hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) in patients with recent-onset polyarthritis who were suspected of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), were very low and were not different compared to the general population. Thus, they proposed that serological testing for HBV and HCV is unnecessary in routine diagnostic evaluation for these patients. Currently in our institution, simultaneous serological testing for HBV and HCV and even hepatitis A (HAV) is performed on patients suspected of RA as part of a routine diagnostic evaluation. We performed this study to also check the usefulness of such routine diagnostic evaluation of hepatitis.We investigated the hepatitis test results in patients … Address correspondence to Dr. T-Y. Kim; E-mail: tykim{at}hanyang.ac.kr ER -