Recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were elaborated on the basis of recently published recommendations of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). They call attention to the importance of early diagnosis, early treatment with disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), tight control of disease activity, and treatment to target (remission or low disease activity) in the optimisation of the management of RA, and indicate methods to obtain longitudinal remission (Fig. 1, Tables I–IV).