الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION AND THE AIM OF THE WORKOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology, that results in the progressive destruction of affected joints Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease, occurring primarily in older persons, characterized by erosion of the articular cartilage, hypertrophy of the bone at the margins (i.e. osteophytes), subchondral sclerosis and a range of biochemical and morphologic alterations of the synovial membrane and joint capsule. Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) is an important cartilage matrix macromolecule and it is the largest matrix protein in articular cartilage after collagen and proteoglycan. Aim of work: This study was designed to evaluate serum COMP level in RA and OA patients and to correlate serum COMP level with clinical, laboratory and radiological findings in those patients. This study was conducted on 50 patients (25 RA patients, 25 OA patients).The results were compared to 10 healthy subjects as control group with no significant difference in age, sex, weight, height and BMI. This study has shown that: Estimation of serum COMP levels could be used as screening test for patients with RA and OA and it could be used also to predict the progression and severity in knee OA patients and to less extent in following the disease progression in patients with RA.