[Autoantibodies in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Utility of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptides].
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the commonest inflammatory joint diseases, affecting about 1% of population. Despite its high prevalence, many aspects of its etiopathogeny remain unclarified. Recently, some important findings related to RA pathogenesis with a number of consequences on the treatment and prognosis of this aggressive disease have been reported. It is important to diagnose and to treat the disease early to avoid long-term damage. However, the search for a specific and sensitive serological test to early identify RA patients has yielded poor results. Autoantibodies are found in the sera of RA patients with a variable prevalence and have been classified into RA-specific and RA-unspecific antibodies. It has been recently demonstrated that many of those RA-specific autoantibodies recognize peptides that contain citrulline residues and, thus, a new test to measure the presence of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCP) antibodies has been developed. Research publications about the utility of anti-CCP antibodies not only in the diagnosis, but also in the prognosis, of RA are increasing exponentially. In fact, the value of the measurement of anti-CCP antibodies is already widely recognized. This review summarizes the most important data about the autoantibodies employed to date in the diagnosis of RA, including anti-CCP antibodies.
Ruiz-Alegría
Carlos
C
Servicio de Inmunología. Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla. Santander. España.
López-Hoyos
Marcos
M
D000465:Algorithms; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000097:blood*; D002956:Citrulline / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic / Q000276:immunology*
D001323:Autoantibodies; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic; D002956:Citrulline