RESEARCH - New ANA test helps sort out false positive for autoimmune disorders

[Guest guest]

New ANA Test Helps Sort Out False Positives for Autoimmune Disorders

Janis C.

Medscape

January 12, 2011 — Up to 13% of healthy people test positive for

antinuclear antibodies (ANA), which are associated with autoimmune

disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's syndrome, or

systemic lupus erythematosus. Most of those healthy patients with

positive results will not go on to develop autoimmune diseases, but

sorting out the patients with false positives from those patients

truly at risk has been difficult.

Now Henrique A. Mariz, MD, and colleagues, working with E.C.

Andrade, MD, PhD, from the Universidade Federal de São o, Brazil,

report that specific patterns on the immunofluorescent ANA-HEp-2 assay

are strongly associated with autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARD). The

researchers hope that clinicians might be able to use these pattern

differences to reduce the risk for an erroneous autoimmune disorder

diagnosis.

The study, reported in the January issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism,

enrolled 918 healthy individuals (634 women, 284 men) between the ages

of 18 and 66 years and compared their blood tests with those from a

control group of 153 patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases. This

group included patients with lupus (n = 87), patients with systemic

sclerosis (n = 45), patients with Sjögren's syndrome (n = 11), and

patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (n = 10). ANA-HEp-2

tests were run on all participants and considered positive if a

well-defined indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) pattern was identified.

******************************************

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/735673

Not an MD