Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in West Africa is atypical in a number of respects. In order to investigate this we evaluated the serological profile of a series of West African patients diagnosed as having RA. We found the presence of a wide range of autoantibodies including antinuclear antibodies (ANA), anticardiolipin antibodies and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies but the pattern of these autoantibodies was similar to that reported in other studies. Our serological studies support the hypothesis that these patients do have RA and the presence of these autoantibodies is of interest with regards to implications for diagnosis.