autoantibodies in patients with fasciolosis

background: antiself humoral immune responses have been detected not only in classical autoimmune dis­eases, but autoantibodies have also been found in sera of patients suffering from chronic parasitic dis­eases. we aimed to investigate the role of fasciolosis as a trigger factor of autoimmune reactivity by searching some anti­bodies related to hepatobiliary systems, in patients with fasciolosis. methods: thirty-two patients (17 males, 15 females) with fasciolosis were included in this case-control study. anti-nuclear antibodies (ana) screen (antigen mixture of dsdna, histones, nrnp/sm, sm, ss-a, ss-b, scl-70, jo-1, ribosomal p-proteins, centromere) elisa and single-antigen elisas for detection of some antibodies (dsdna, anti-m2, anti- liver-kidney microsomes type 1 (lkm-1) and myeloperoxidase (mpo) were carried out. results: ana-screen, m-2, lkm-1, mpo and anti-dsdna positivity were detected with elisa in 7, 7, 4, 2 and 2 of 32 patients with fasciolosis, consecutively. no statistically significant difference was de­tected for any of the autoantibodies' frequency between patients with fasciolosis and control group. how­ever, autoantibody positivity rate was significantly higher in patients with fasciolosis (50 %) than control group (12.5 %). absorbance values of all autoantibodies in patients with fasciolosis were statistically sig­nificant higher than controls. conclusion: these results lent support to the role of fasciolosis as a trigger factor of autoimmune reactiv­ity by the breakdown of tolerance. in spite of the extensive knowledge that has accumulated, the specific relationship be­tween fasciolosis and autoimmunity is still obscure.