comparison of sensitivity and specificity of anti-ccp and anti-mcv antibodies in an iranian cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

background: anti-ccp is a test commonly used for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. the aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic values of accp compared to anti-mcv in rheumatoid arthritis patients in north of iran. methods: the serum samples of 150 ra patients and 75 controls, with the mean age of 49.6+11.8 and 48.8+12 years respectively, were tested using the commercially available elisa kits for accp and anti-mcv. sensitivity, specificity were determined and roc curve were used for comparison between these two groups.results: the sensitivity of accp versus anti-mcv was 85% and 81%, respectively. specificity was 96% and 95%, respectively. in the ra patients, accp was positive in 127 (84.7%) and anti mcv in 121 (80.7%) cases. in the control group, these parameters were positive in 3 (4%) and 4 (5.3%) (p<0.0001 and p<0.0001, respectively). the correlation coefficient for accp and anti-mcv was calculated at 0.63 (p<0.001). the area under the curve for accp was 0.941±0.015 (p<0.001), anti-mcv was 0.902±0.02 (p<0.001). the measure of agreement (kappa) for these variables was 0.81. in these patients, there was no correlation between das28 and the positivity of these tests. conclusion: it was concluded, compared to accp, anti-mcv has approximately the same accuracy for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and it does not have additional value.