HLA-DRB1 and rheumatoid arthritis: Alleles with a conserved sequence at amino-acid residues 70–74 in the third hypervariable region of HLA-DRB1 and referred to as SE showed a significant association with both pre-RA individuals (OR = 2.7, CI: 1.3–5.6; p = 0.005) and FDR (OR = 2.8, CI: 1.3–5.7; p = 0.005) when compared to HC.