Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, severe, progressive inflammatory autoimmune disease of uncertain etiology involving multiple peripheral joints. Rheumatoid arthritis is diagnosed according to clinical findings and serological testing. The main useful serological markers are rheumatoid factor and antibodies to citrullinated peptides. The present study was done to know the prevalence of Rheumatoid factor as a serological marker in clinically suspected arthritis cases in a tertiary care hospital. 100 blood samples from orthopaedic department received in the microbiology department were tested for RF out of 100 patients 68 were females and 32 males. Most of the patients were between the age group 20 – 50 years. The prevalence of RF was 7%. Out of 7 RF positive cases 5 were females and 2 were males. Rheumatoid factor alone may be of little value as a screening test to diagnose or exclude rheumatic disease in either healthy populations or those with arthralgias. For evaluation of patients with suspected rheumatoid arthritis it is recommended to perform cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody and IgM rheumatoid factor to increase both the sensitivity and specificity of the results.

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