Study population
Patients (n = 298) who fulfilled the 1987 revised criteria of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) or the 2010 ACR/European League Against Rheumatism criteria for RA classification were retrospectively recruited from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine-Affiliated Jinhua Hospital between March 2022 and March 2023. Patients with RA (n = 43) who had hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity in the serum were categorized into the HBV group (HBV-RA group), while 255 RA patients without HBsAg positivity were assigned to the control group. According to the amount of HBV DNA, 13 patients were enrolled into the HBV DNAlow (HBV DNA < 20 IU/ml) group and 30 patients were enrolled into the HBV DNAhigh (HBV DNA ≥ 20 IU/ml) group, respectively. In this work we enrolled patients with RA…