OBJECTIVE:To examine the incidence of, and outcome after, a stroke in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with the general population.METHODS: The northern Sweden MONICA register was used to compare the incidence of stroke in a cohort of RA patients with the general population. Forty RA patients who had also suffered a stroke were identified. For each patient with RA, three controls with a history of stroke but without RA were randomly collected from the same register, and matched for age and sex.RESULTS: The standardised incidence ratio (SIR) for stroke was 2.7 in RA patients compared with the general population (p