Poppelaars PBM, et al. - Researchers in this study, examined mortality in the COBRA-trial cohort after 23 years follow-up in comparison with a sample of the Dutch population. They noted the death of 44 patients including 20 COBRA cases and 79 sulfasalazine monotherapy (SSZ) patients whereas 55 subjects died in the reference sample of the general population. Following factors significantly correlated with increased mortality hazard: damage progression at 28 weeks; high Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) score and absence of HLA-DR 2 or 3; disease duration from the origin of complaints was also significant but noted as an uninterpretable pattern.