Fig. 4

Paths of rheumatoid hand development. From the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, patterns were present in the development of hand deformities. There were two subsets in these patterns: a conservative subset with only type 1 thumb deformities, at most, and a progressive subset including hands that developed significant deformities. Multiple finger deformities, including swan-neck deformities, and type 2 and 3 thumb deformities could be a useful indicator of the progressive subset