Table 2.

Correlations between serum concentrations of studied MMPs or tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) and C-reactive protein (CRP) or disease activity score (DAS28) in RA patients before rituximab therapy

	CRP	MMP-1	MMP-3	MMP-9	TIMP-1
DAS28	0.827***	0.643*	0.741**	0.811***	0.643*
CRP		0.508	0.753**	0.701*	0.651*

Data expressed as r values (correlation coefficient) according to Spearman rank correlation

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001