OBJECTIVES Patients with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) are prone to disease relapse. Currently, no good biomarkers are available to predict relapses in individual patients. This study aimed to determine whether patients at risk for relapse can be distinguished based on increased in vitro autoantibody production. METHODS Eighty-four proteinase 3 (PR3) anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antib...

background and purpose: multiple sclerosis (ms) is believed to be an immune-mediated disorder that develops from an interaction of the individual's genetic and as yet unidentified environmental causes. the prevalence of auto-antibodies in multiple sclerosis patients and their clinical associations vary in various studies. the aim of this study was to determine serum auto antibodies in multiple ...

This chapter aims to draw attention to the features that distinguish drug-induced vasculitis from those of idiopathic autoimmune syndromes, first and foremost primary vasculitides. Development of a systemic drug-induced syndrome only develops in a minority of patients treated with a drug over a prolonged period of time, whereas cutaneous vasculitis occurs quite commonly. The most frequent sympt...

The objective was to evaluate the frequency of cytoplasmic and peripheral antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) in patients with leprosy, and to correlate the presence of ANCA with type and disease activity. Consecutive patients with leprosy were assessed clinically, and IgG ANCA were measured by indirect immunofluorescence. The presence of three of the following was used to assess disea...

INTRODUCTION Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies specific for bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI-ANCA) are frequent in CF patients and mainly develop in response to infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is not known to what extent BPI-ANCA correlates to prognosis. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the prognostic value of IgA-BPI-ANCA, measured at the beginning of the study, for tra...

To the editor, In the excellent study recently published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Disease, Damoiseaux et al showed a high diagnostic performance of antigen-specific immunoassay for the detection of myeloperoxidase (MPO) and proteinase 3 (PR3) antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCAs). These data challenge the role of indirect immunofluorescence in the ANCA testing algorithm. In our ce...

We evaluated the combined use of different fixatives for the identification of atypical perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (p-ANCA) in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF). Sera from 59 ulcerative colitis (UC) and 37 Crohn's disease (CD) patients, and from 64 healthy controls were studied. The IIF on ethanol-, formalin-, and methan...

Small vessel vasculitides associated with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) are severe systemic diseases that may affect any organ. Increasing clinical and experimental evidence indicates that ANCA are causally involved in disease pathogenesis mainly through activation of neutrophils resulting in endothelial cell injury. Recent studies suggest a previously unsuspected but crucia...

Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) have been reported in up to 87% of patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis with or without ulcerative colitis (PSC +/- UC) and in 68% of those with UC only. Compared with other liver and diarrhoeal diseases, ANCA have high specificity for PSC (+/- UC) and UC only. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and significance of ANCA in these two...

A dministration of propylthiouracil therapy has been associated with a hypersensitivity syndrome that typically manifests as vasculitis. Most cases of propylthiouracil therapy– induced antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) positivity react to perinuclear ANCA (p-ANCA). We describe a patient who presented with cutaneous manifestations of propylthiouracil therapy hypersensitivity vasculitis ...