R arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease that frequently starts at the peak of productive life and causes irreversible joint damage, disability, and premature mortality. To improve the result it is important to diagnose and treat the disease early.1 The diagnosis of RA is usually based on the ACR (American College Of Rheumatology) classification criteria that include clinical manifes...

OBJECTIVE The co-occurrence of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM) has been reported in individuals and families. In this study, the strength and nature of this association were investigated at the population level in a Swedish case-control cohort. METHODS For this case-control study, 1,419 patients with incident RA diagnosed between 1996 an...

Introduction: Adalimumab is a fully human monoclonal anti-TNF-α antibody used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis. Other available TNF-α inhibitors, such as infliximab (chimeric monoclonal antibody) and etanercept (soluble anti-TNF-α receptor), can induce the synthesis of autoantibodies and even cause drug-induced lupus. Anti-cyclic citrullin...

OBJECTIVE Serological markers are thought to be useful in predicting which patients with early inflammatory arthritis (EIA) will progress to RA. The objective of this study is to determine the per cent RF and anti-CCP seroconversion in EIA patients at 1-5 years of follow-up: 80% of established RA is RF or CCP positive. METHODS We conducted a systematic literature review of all English publica...

Using the North American Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium genome-wide association dataset, we applied ridged, multiple least-squares regression to identify genetic variants with apparent unique contributions to variation of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP), a newly identified clinical risk factor for development of rheumatoid arthritis. Within a 2.7-Mbp region on chromosome 6 around ...

BACKGROUND Symmetric polyarthritis associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection frequently displays a clinical picture like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) have high specificity for the diagnosis of RA. This study examined the frequency and clinical significance of anti-CCP antibodies in patients with chronic HCV infection, with and without manif...

This systematic review assesses the current status of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) and rheumatoid factor (RF) tests in the diagnosis and prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We reviewed publications on tests and biomarkers for early diagnosis of RA from English-language MEDLINE-indexed journals and non-MEDLINE-indexed sources. 85 publications were identified and reviewed, inc...

A small number of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients develop an erosive disease. Some studies have suggested an association between anti-cyclic citrullinated (anti-CCP) antibodies and this pattern of arthritis, but their exact significance in SLE patients remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of anti-CCP antibodies in SLE patients with different subsets ...

Anti-CCP antibodies as an aid to prioritization of patients referred to the rheumatology clinic Sir, As noted in your review article, 1 anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (CCP) have been shown to be more sensitive and specific for rheuma-toid arthritis (RA) than the rheumatoid factor (RF). 2 It is also well accepted that patients with early RA should be seen and treated as soon as pos...