Healthy volunteers with no symptoms or signs of rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients fulfilled 2010 American college of rheumatology (ACR) classification criteria. A patient is considered having definite RA if he/she scores at least 6 points in the established classification system

Osteoarthritis (OA) patients fulfilled 1990 ACR criteria for the classification and reporting of osteoarthritis of the hand. A patient is considered having hand OA if he /she Hand pain, aching, or stiffness plus 3 or 4 of hard tissue enlargement of 2 or more of 10 selected joints or hard tissue enlargement of 2 or more DIP joints or fewer than 3 swollen MCP joints, or deformity of at least 1 of 10 selected joints which are are the second and third distal interphalangeal (DIP), the second and third proximal interphalangeal, and the first carpometacarpal joints of both hands

During the whole course of the study, disease activity of the patients was measured by disease activity score (DAS28) for RA patients. Visual analogue scale for pain (VAS) was obtained from patients in RA and OA groups. Functional assessment was done using health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) for RA patients and the Australian/Canadian (AUSCAN) Osteoarthritis Hand Index for OA patients.

IL-17 will be measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay from collected serum samples from the study participants

During the whole course of the study period, recruited participants undergone musculoskeletal (MSK) ultrasound to assess the bony changes.