RESEARCH - Very low prevalence of anti-CCP antibodies in RF-negative PsA

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Rheumatology Advance Access published online on December 24, 2008

Rheumatology, doi:10.1093/rheumatology/ken456

Very low prevalence of anti-CCP antibodies in rheumatoid

factor-negative psoriatic polyarthritis

P. Pasquetti1, G. Morozzi1 and M. Galeazzi1

1Rheumatology Section, Department of Clinical Medicine and

Immunological Science, Policlinico 'le e', Siena, Italy

SIR, PsA is a heterogeneous disease that can develop with several

patterns of articular involvement that could vary over time. In

clinical practice, the diagnosis is based on assessment of typical

signs (dactylitis, enthesitis, DIP joints involvement and inflammatory

back pain), although sometimes the broad spectrum of disease

expression makes it difficult.

According to Moll and criteria RF should be negative in PsA,

even if most recent classification criteria tend to confirm the

diagnosis despite RF presence [1].

Antibodies against cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) were for

years a highly specific tool for RA diagnosis in addition to RF, and

were demonstrated to be correlated with higher disease activity and a

more erosive progression. Their prevalence in RA seems to be increased

when associated with RF [2], even if RF-negative RA patients evidence

an anti-CCP incidence between 20% and 60%.

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Read the full article here:

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/ken456v1

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