Patients with rheumatoid arthritis, 500 males and 500 females, aged 40 years or over, together with an age and sex matched control population, were observed over a 5-year period. During the follow-up 176 RA patients and 107 controls died. The most common causes of death in RA patients were cardiovascular diseases (86 patients), renal failure (33 patients), infections (23 patients), and malignant neoplasms (21 patients); in the controls, the corresponding data are cardiovascular diseases (53), malignant neoplasms (30), infections (9), and accidents (8).