Abstract:

Objective To investigate the clinical relevance of antinuclear antibodies （ANA） in patients with systemic sclerosis（SSc）. Methods Clinical data were collected from 283 patients with SSc admitted to Peking Union Medical College Hospital（PUMCH） from 1981 to 2009. A retrospective analysis was carried out. Results In the 283 patients, 253（89.4%） were female. The mean age at onset was 35.9 ± 12.6 years and mean disease duration 4.3 ± 4.5 years. There were 125 （44.2%） patients with diffuse SSc （dcSSc） and 158 （55.8%） with limited cutaneous SSc（lcSSc）. Of all the patients, 96.8% were positive for ANA, 54.4% for anti-Scl-70 antibodies, 6.4% for anticentromere antibodies（ACA）, 23.7% for anti-ribonucleoprotein （RNP） antibodies, 7.1% for anti-Sm antibodies, 25.1% for anti-SSA antibodies, 7.1% for anti-SSB antibodies, and 1.1% for anti-Jo-1 antibodies. No patients were positive for anti-rRNP antibodies. Only one patient was positive for both anti-Scl-70 antibodies and ACA. The positivity rate of ACA in patients with lcSSc was higher than that in those with dcSSc （P < 0.05）. Conclusion The detection of antinuclear antibodies is helpful for the diagnosis, classification, prognosis evaluation and management of SSc.

Key words: Scleroderma, systemic, Antibodies, antinuclear, Retrospective studies