1965 年 62 巻 12 号 p. 1647-1659_2
It is considered that the rheumatoid factor tests are not always specific to rheumatoid arthritis, but often positive in other autoimmune diseases and liver diseases.
The chronicity of liver diseases has been interested recently. And antoimmune mechanism is thought as of its genesis.
In this paper, the frequency of positive rheumatoid factor tests in liver deseases and. the comparison of clinical pictures between positive and negative cases of these tests were reported.
As the rheumatoid factor tests, Latex Fixation Test (LFT), FII Agglutinatingreaction (F II A), and Waaler-Rose reaction (Heller-Svartz's method: SSA) were performed. The results were as follows.
(1) In the total cases of liver disease, the positive LFT was 42.3%, F II A: 29.6%, and SSA: 17.3%.
These positive results seemed significantly higher than others except collagen diseases.
(2) In liver diseases, the positive appearence rates were higher in chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis than in acute hepatitis.
(3) In acute hepatitis, some cases became positive in LFT at the recombalescent stadium temporarily, but others stayed negative.
(4) In chronic hepatitis, many cases with positive LFT were more elevated in the levels of GOT, GPT, AL-P, ZTT and γ-globulin than LFT negative, and most of LFT positive cases showed histologically cell infiltration, necrosis of liver cells and fibrosis by liver biopsy. In these cases LFT became positive temporarily or continuously and the latter cases, were aggravated occasionally, of which prognosis were worse as compared with negative or temporary positive cases.
(5) In liver cirrhosis, many positive cases of LFT were elevated in the levels of γ-Globulin, TTT and ZTT markedly in contrast to negative ones. Predominant cell infiltration, liver cell necrosis, and fibrosis were revealed histologically by liver biopsy in the former cases.
The appearance of LFT in liver cirrhosis were generally continuous and the titers of the testwere paralleled to its clinical course. The prognosis of the continuous positivecases were worse compare with negative or temporary positive cases and all the fatal cases were included in the former group.