Rheumatoid Arthritis
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40 free Rheumatoid Arthritis trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rheumatoid arthritis affects millions of people worldwide, and it is widely misunderstood. It is not the wear-and-tear arthritis that comes with age: it behaves differently, keeps a different schedule and is treated with an entirely different set of medicines. This quiz covers the ground a patient, carer or student would expect. There are questions on the pattern of symptoms and the joints involved, the blood tests and terms used in diagnosis, the complications that reach beyond the joints, and the drugs that changed the outlook, from mid-century breakthroughs to modern biologics. A run of history and culture questions looks at the doctors who described and named the illness, a Nobel-winning discovery, and the artists, actors, athletes and scientists who lived with it. It suits nursing and medical students revising rheumatology, people who want to understand the vocabulary their doctors use, and anyone who enjoys medical trivia. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something. It is a knowledge quiz, not a diagnostic tool or medical advice.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Salts of which precious metal were injected into muscle for decades to slow the joint damage of rheumatoid arthritis?
Gold
Gold salts, a treatment known as chrysotherapy, fell from favor because of their side effects. In rare cases long courses leave the skin permanently slate gray.
Q 02Which French Impressionist painted through the last twenty years of his life despite severe rheumatoid arthritis?
Renoir
Renoir did not paint with a brush strapped to his fingers, as legend has it. He could still grip one, though an assistant had to set it in place.
Q 03Which habit, acting together with certain genes, is the best-defined environmental risk for rheumatoid arthritis?
Smoking tobacco
Smoking tobacco raises the risk most in men, in heavy users and in people who test positive for the disease's telltale blood antibodies.
Q 04Which bird names the finger deformity of rheumatoid arthritis in which one joint arches back and the tip curls down?
Swan
Swan neck deformity curls the fingertip toward the palm while the joint below it bends back. The thumb has too few joints for it, so its version is called duck bill deformity.
Q 05During which stage of life do most women with rheumatoid arthritis find that their symptoms temporarily ease?
Pregnancy
Pregnancy eases symptoms for a majority of women with the disease, but the relief rarely lasts. Flares are common in the months after delivery.
Q 06Rheumatoid arthritis ended the career of which surgeon, who performed the first human-to-human heart transplant?
Christiaan Barnard
Christiaan Barnard retired as head of cardiac surgery in Cape Town in 1983, sixteen years after the 1967 operation that made him world famous.
Q 07Which injectable drug's brand name is short for human monoclonal antibody in rheumatoid arthritis?
Humira
Humira, known generically as adalimumab, had the largest sales of any drug in the world in 2019 and 2020, at around $20 billion a year.
Q 08Rheumatoid arthritis, like lupus and type 1 diabetes, belongs to which broad class of disorders?
Autoimmune diseases
Autoimmune diseases arise when the immune system attacks the body's own healthy tissue. In this case its main target is the lining of the joints.
Q 09The joint stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis, which eases with movement, is usually worst at which time of day?
Early morning
Early morning stiffness can last for several hours before movement loosens the joints. It follows an overnight rise in inflammatory signals such as interleukin-6.
Q 10Which actress, the voice of Jessica Rabbit, kept her rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis quiet during the 1990s?
Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner's medication changed her appearance, which set off tabloid speculation about drinking. She let the rumor stand, believing it was worse for people to know about the illness.
Q 11Which joint disease, caused by the breakdown of cartilage, is far more common than rheumatoid arthritis?
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis worldwide. Unlike rheumatoid joints, the ones it wears down do not turn hot or red.
Q 12Rheumatoid arthritis usually starts in which joints, typically on both sides of the body at once?
Hands and feet
Hands and feet are usually struck first, in the small joints at the knuckles and the base of the toes. Larger joints tend to follow later.
Q 13Ibuprofen and naproxen, which ease rheumatoid arthritis pain without slowing the disease, belong to which drug class?
NSAIDs
Q 21Which drug, originally a cancer chemotherapy, is usually the first treatment prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis?
Methotrexate
Methotrexate is taken weekly rather than daily to limit its toxicity. The doses used for joints are far lower than those given to cancer patients.
Q 22What term describes rheumatoid arthritis in the one-third of patients whose blood shows no telltale antibodies?
Seronegative
Seronegative disease tests negative for rheumatoid factor and its sister marker, so a clean blood result never rules the diagnosis out.
Q 23Which rheumatoid arthritis drug, sold as Plaquenil, belongs to a family of medicines developed to fight malaria?
Hydroxychloroquine
NSAIDs, short for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, reduce pain and stiffness but do nothing to the long-term course, so they are no longer a first-line treatment.
Q 14Which steroid hormone, known in the lab as Compound E, was first given to rheumatoid arthritis patients in 1948?
Cortisone
Cortisone earned Philip Hench, Edward Kendall and Tadeus Reichstein the 1950 Nobel Prize in Medicine, just two years after the first patient trials.
Q 15The JAK enzymes blocked by rheumatoid arthritis pills such as tofacitinib are named after which Roman god?
Janus
Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and endings, fit because each enzyme has two near-identical working domains. The initials first stood for 'just another kinase'.
Q 16Swelling around the wrist in rheumatoid arthritis can squeeze the median nerve, causing which common condition?
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common nerve problem in the disease. It brings numbness and tingling to the thumb and the fingers beside it.
Q 17Rheumatoid arthritis and long-term steroid treatment both raise the risk of which condition behind many broken hips?
Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis first appears in the bone around inflamed joints. Immobility, inflammatory signals and corticosteroid treatment then spread the thinning through the skeleton.
Q 18In which city did Augustin Jacob Landré-Beauvais write the first recognized description of rheumatoid arthritis in 1800?
Paris
Paris was home to the famed Salpêtrière Hospital, where the young doctor worked. He wrongly took the disease for a form of gout.
Q 19Which Danish tennis player, a former world No. 1, revealed in 2018 that she had rheumatoid arthritis?
Caroline Wozniacki
Caroline Wozniacki made the announcement months after winning the Australian Open, her only major title. She said she wanted to be a role model for people with the condition.
Q 20Which thin membrane, lining the inside of joint capsules, is the main target of rheumatoid arthritis?
Synovium
Synovium has an inner layer thinner than a sheet of paper. In this disease it swells and thickens, and the cartilage and bone beneath begin to break down.
Hydroxychloroquine, approved in the United States in 1955, is also considered the first-line treatment for lupus.
Q 24What are the firm lumps called that form under the skin, often at the elbow, in some people with rheumatoid arthritis?
Nodules
Nodules are the most common feature of the disease outside the joints. They favor bony points under repeated pressure, such as elbows, heels and knuckles.
Q 25Which condition, marked by dry eyes and a dry mouth, often develops alongside rheumatoid arthritis?
Sjögren's disease
Sjögren's disease arises when immune cells infiltrate the glands that make tears and saliva. Severe dryness of the eye is painful and can threaten vision.
Q 26Chronic inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis traps iron in the body's stores, causing which common blood condition?
Anemia
Anemia is by far the most common blood abnormality in the disease. Inflammation raises a hormone called hepcidin, which blocks iron absorption and locks iron away in immune cells.
Q 27Before starting certain biologic drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, patients are screened for which latent lung infection?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis can lie dormant in the body, and drugs that block a key immune signal can let it reactivate, so doctors test for it first.
Q 28Which vitamin is commonly prescribed with the main rheumatoid arthritis drug to cut nausea and other side effects?
Folic acid
Folic acid offsets the way the drug works, which is by blocking the body's use of that same vitamin.
Q 29Rheumatoid arthritis has been consistently linked with bacterial disease of which part of the mouth?
Gums
Gums infected by certain bacteria may help set off the illness. The microbes alter proteins there, a change suspected of provoking the antibodies that later attack joints.
Q 30Prompt drug treatment brings about half of rheumatoid arthritis patients into which state, the main goal of care?
Remission
Remission is the realistic aim because there is no cure. The signs of active inflammation fade, but stopping the medicines can bring them back.