Abstract:

Objective To investigate the role of anti-nuclear antibody（ANA）-dense fine speckled pattern in the diagnosis of systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease（SARD）.Methods A total of 1 683 samples from suspected or diagnosed patients suffering from SARD were determined for ANA by indirect immunofluorescence（IIF） and anti-extractable nuclear antigen antibody（ENA） by immunoblotting test. The identifications of ANA type were performed on samples positive by IIF but negative by immunoblotting test and both positive by IIF and immunoblotting test. The correlation of ANA-dense fine speckled pattern and the occurrence of SARD was evaluated by rank correlation analysis. Results There was no statistical significance between the positive rates by IIF-ANA and immunoblotting test-ENA（P=0.155）. In 72 samples only positive by IIF,the common speckled pattern accounted for 44.44%,and dense fine speckled pattern accounted for 40.28% without statistical significance（P=0.701）. The homogeneous pattern（12.50%） and nucleolus pattern（2.78%） showed statistical significance with dense fine speckled pattern（P=0.001,P<0.001）. There was no correlation between dense fine speckled pattern and SARD（r=-0.300,P=0.667）. Dense fine speckled pattern appeared in none of the 644 samples both positive by IIF-ANA and immunoblotting test-ENA. Conclusions The positive ANA-dense fine speckled pattern may be applied in excluding SARD.

Key words: Anti-nuclear antibody-dense fine speckled pattern, Autoantibody, Systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease