The authors have conducted a comparative retrospective study between polymyalgia rheumatic (N = 26) and rheumatoid arthritis in the elderly (N = 44), including HLA DRB1 genotype determination by PCR-RFLP analysis. No clinical nor biological differences were significant between the 2 groups of patients. However 70% of RA patients had one ore more susceptibility alleles (shared epitope hypothesis) and 50% in polymyalgia rheumatica.