title: Fucose concentrations in sera from patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
abstract: The clinical significance of L-fucose was investigated in serum of a well characterized cohort of 135 RA patients and 60 healthy controls. In RA patients, serum L-fucose was significantly decreased to a mean of 5.57 +/- 0.97 mg%, (range 2.2-7.5 mg%), compared with 7.5 +/- 1.04 mg% (range 5.7-9.8 mg%) (p < 0.001) in normal controls. In early RA serum L-fucose was significantly depressed to a mean of 6.08 mg%, a value which was significantly higher than the mean concentration of L-fucose in patients with advanced RA. Serum L-fucose was significantly correlated with the rheumatoid disease activity, duration, number of involved joints, and bone erosions. No statistically significant difference was found between seropositive and seronegative RA patients. However, a significant difference (p < 0.001) between female (5.57 mg%) and male (6.59 mg%) patients with advanced RA, and between male (6.08 mg%) and female (5.99 mg%) patients with early RA was found. These findings suggest that serum L-fucose is depressed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, a promising observation since L-fucose is a safe and simple natural sugar. It may be used as an additional parameter and as an indicator for the disease activity in the follow up of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
authors.affiliation: Dr. Fakhry Hospital, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamel
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Serafi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000097:blood*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005643:Fucose / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012217:Rheumatoid Factor / Q000097:blood; D012727:Sex Characteristics
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D005643:Fucose; D012217:Rheumatoid Factor