The diagnostic and prognostic significance of antinuclear antibodies in rheumatoid arthritis is discussed.
109 patients with classical or definite RA (95 female, 14 male) were studied.
Patients ranged in age from 23 to 87 years, with an average of 59 years.
The duration of disease varied from 3 years to 53 years (average, 12.5 years).
Positive detection of antinuclear antibodies was 55% (over×40) with homogeneous types most frequently detected (63%) followed by nucleolar types (14%) and speckled types (7%). Detection of anti-centromere antibodies was positive in three cases in this series. 10 of 14 seronegative RA in this series were positive for antinuclear antibodies, and all of these patients were in the subset of cases with least erossive disease.
This study suggests that many RA patients may have other collagen diseases.
