title: Rheumatoid factor in hepatitis B virus surface antigen positive patients.
abstract: Rheumatoid factor (RF) is often found in the sera of patients with nonrheumatic diseases in comparison with normal individuals. We collected 95 healthy HBs antigen positive adults and 98 healthy HBs antigen negative adults. RF was present in 14.74% (14/95) of the HBs antigen positive group while it was present in 3.06% (3/98) of the HBs antigen negative group (p < 0.05). RF was positive in 15.38% (2/13) of the HBe antigen positive patients whereas it was positive in 14.63% (12/82) of the HBe antigen negative patients (p > 0.05). RF was found positive in 16.90% (12/71) of the anti-HBe antibody positive group while it was positive in 8.33% (2/24) of the anti-HBe antibody negative group (p > 0.05). We conclude that the positive rate of RF in HBs antigen positive patients is significantly higher than in that of HBs antigen negative patients. The incidence of RF positivity of the HBe antigen positive group is not higher than that of the HBe antigen negative group. The positive rate of RF in anti-HBe antibody positive group has a tendency to be higher than in that of their negative counterparts though there was no significant difference between them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chiang
authors.forename: S F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: N H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Yen
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002353:Carrier State / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000097:blood; D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000097:blood*; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012217:Rheumatoid Factor / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens; D012217:Rheumatoid Factor