The condition that will be studied is Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and in particular, RA patients with moderate to highly active disease who were prescribed Abatacept (Orencia®) (ABA) by their physician during their setting of care at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). This investigator-initiated, prospective, comparative, 3-arm observational study will examine changes in lymphocytes in RA patients starting abatacept compared to RA patients starting TNF inhibitors and to healthy controls. This will help investigators to learn more about the processes that cause joints to swell and hurt. This may also offer clues that might predict which patients will have a good or poor response to these treatments.
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Have severe complications of RA that might require imminent escalation of therapy, e.g. pericarditis, active vasculitis of a major organ system.
Have an autoimmune disease or systemic inflammatory rheumatic disease (e.g., lupus erythematosus) that could confound T and B cell subset results
Have a concurrent serious medical disease (e.g., terminal malignancy)
Have a BMI indicating poor health (<18 or > 40)