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Factors associated with the antinuclear antibody (ANA) titer of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases in ANA-positive patients after treatment: a retrospective study

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Abstract

Antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) are a serological hallmark of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs); however, few studies have investigated their post-treatment levels. The mechanism by which ANA titers are upregulated in SARDs remains unclear. We assessed factors associated with the ANA titer after treatment. In this retrospective study, we analyzed the clinical database of Zhongshan Hospital, Medical College of Xiamen. Demographic data and baseline and 12-month post-treatment ANA titers were collected. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine the factors associated with the ANA titer. This study identified 31,923 patients who underwent ANA assay for SARDs screening, and a total of 1043 patients were included in the study. Approximately 16% of the patients showed a decrease in the serological ANA titer. Younger patients (< 20) were 3 × more likely to experience such a decrease (P = 0.005) compared to older patients (≥ 60 years). Having a baseline ANA titer > 1:10,000 was associated with an increase likelihood of a decrease in the serological ANA titer compared with baseline ANA titer 1:10,000, 1:3200 and 1:1000 (P < 0.001). We found that a decrease in the serum ANA titer at 12 months after treatment for SARDs is associated with age and ANA baseline titers.

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Data availability

All the data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Clinical Laboratory, School of Medicine, Zhongshan Hospital, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361004, China

    Yun Xiao, Yiqiang Lin, Yan Zhang, Jiajia Wang & Yanli Zeng

  2. Institute of Infectious Disease, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361004, China

    Yun Xiao, Yiqiang Lin, Yan Zhang, Jiajia Wang & Yanli Zeng

Authors
  1. Yun Xiao
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  2. Yiqiang Lin
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  3. Yan Zhang
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  4. Jiajia Wang
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  5. Yanli Zeng
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Contributions

ZY-L, XY, and LY-Q conceived and designed the experiments. ZY and WJ-J performed the experiments. ZY-L and XY analyzed the data. LY-Q and WJ-J contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. XY and ZY-L wrote the paper. XY and LY-Q critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content. All the authors have read and approved of the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yanli Zeng.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of Zhongshan Hospital, Medical College Xiamen University, and performed in compliance with national legislation and the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Xiao, Y., Lin, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Factors associated with the antinuclear antibody (ANA) titer of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases in ANA-positive patients after treatment: a retrospective study. Clin Exp Med 22, 439–446 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-021-00759-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-021-00759-z

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