title: Pseudo Felty's syndrome. A polyclonal disease with a favorable prognosis. Report of two cases with Southern blot analysis of TCR.
abstract: The authors report two patients with large granular lymphocyte (LGL) expansion associated with rheumatoid arthritis corresponding to pseudo Felty's syndrome. These cells have natural killer and T cell surface antigen markers. LGL are a heterogeneous population and expansion of these cells is responsible for leukemia, which is generally a monoclonal proliferation. It has been suggested that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a putative agent in this leukemia. No EBV DNA was found with a polymerase chain reaction analysis in the lymphocyte DNA of our two patients. Some cases of pseudo Felty's syndrome have exhibited a monoclonal pattern on Southern blot analysis of the T cell receptor. On the contrary, our two cases showed a polyclonal pattern with TCR beta chain Southern blot analysis. This fact, associated with the mild course seen in both over more than twenty years, suggest that pseudo Felty's syndrome is a disease with a good prognosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rheumatology, Hôpital Timone, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Toussirot
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lafforgue
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Harle
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaplanski
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mannoni
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Acquaviva
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D002455:Cell Division; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005258:Felty Syndrome / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006098:Granulocytes / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis; D011948:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell / Q000032:analysis*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D011948:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell