Table 1 presents the salient clinical and serological characteristics of the overall study cohort stratified according to disease severity using the Hurley and IHS4 classifications. No significant differences in gender or metabolic syndrome proportions between Hurley severity and IHS4 stage groups were observed. As expected, a significantly higher proportion of patients with severe disease were receiving treatment with the tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α inhibitor adalimumab (χ2 test, p < 0.05). This evidence concerns the gene TNF and metabolic syndrome.