Gerlag DM, et al. - Authors sought to explore the impacts of B-cell directed therapy in subjects at risk of developing autoantibodypositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA), who never experienced inflammatory arthritis before, and explored biomarkers predictive of arthritis development. They included the individuals positive for both anti-citrullinated peptide antibodies and rheumatoid factor but without arthritis in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to receive a single infusion of 1000 mg rituximab or placebo. In subjects at risk of developing RA, providing evidence for the pathogenetic role of B cells, prearthritis stage of autoantibody positive RA, the development of arthritis is significantly delayed by a single infusion of 1000 mg rituximab.