INTRODUCTION Leptin has a prominent role in the development and maintenance of acute and chronic inflammatory states such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and obesity. Nevertheless, the association of serum leptin (sLep) and soluble leptin receptor (sLepR) in RA pathogenesis has not been clarified. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of sLep, sLepR and leptin production indexe...

INTRODUCTION In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), several genetic risk factors and smoking are strongly associated with the presence of anticitrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA), while much less is known about risk factors for ACPA-negative RA. Antibodies against carbamylated proteins (anti-CarP) have been described in both ACPA-positive and ACPA-negative RA patients. In this study, we have analysed...

that anticentromere antibody (ACA)-positive primary Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) shows a clinical phenotype intermediate between ACA-negative SS and systemic sclerosis (SSc) [1]. In our past study investigating the clinical features of 62 patients with positive ACA, only one patient had typical CREST syndrome, 9 patients had Raynaud’s phenomenon (8 with sclerodactyly, telangiectasia or calcinosis), ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the prevalence of anti-cyclic citrullinated proteins (anti-CCP) and IgM rheumatoid factor (RF) in sera of patients with TB compared with healthy controls. PATIENTS AND METHODS 47 consecutive patients with recently diagnosed active pulmonary TB and 39 healthy controls were studied. Data were collected by questionnaire on clinical features of the disease, duration of sym...

Aims: To compare the values and acuracy of the test in anticyclic citrullinated peptides (Anti-CCP /ACPA) antibodies, Rheumatoid factor (RF), C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and disease activity index (PASI) in early diagnosis of untreated Psoriatic arthritis(PsA). Methods: Using the ELISA method of DIA-STATTM Anti CCP (Axis–Shield Diagnostics), sera of 70 participants were examined (35 untreated pati...

UNLABELLED Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex polygenic inflammatory disease associated with accelerated atherosclerosis and increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease. Previous genome-wide association studies have described SMAD3 rs17228212 polymorphism as an important signal associated with CV events. The aim of the present study was to evaluate for the first time the relationship betw...

OBJECTIVES Identifying early predictors of response to biological agents is important for both the individual patient and health economics. The aim here was to identify clinical variables that are easily assessed in clinical practice which are associated with a major response to rituximab (moderate to good EULAR response, according to DAS28 values) in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis a...

There is currently no biochemical test for detection of early-stage osteoarthritis (eOA). Tests for early-stage rheumatoid arthritis (eRA) such as rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibodies require refinement to improve clinical utility. We developed robust mass spectrometric methods to quantify citrullinated protein (CP) and free hydroxyproline in body fluids...