Abstract
Our goal was to study the prevalence of systemic sclerosis (SSc) subtypes, autoantibody profile, and pulmonary fibrosis in a large group of Han Chinese. Chinese SSc patients (n = 419) were recruited from a multicenter study including hospitals and outpatient clinics in China. All patients met the American College of Rheumatology classification criteria for SSc. Anti-topoisomerase (ATA), anti-centromere (ACA), anti-RNA polymerase III (anti-RNAP3), and anti-U1-ribonucleoprotein (anti-U1RNP) were detected utilizing commercially available kits. The clinical and autoantibody information in Chinese patients was compared to that in the US Caucasian patients (n = 834), recruited from the Genetics versus Environment in Scleroderma Outcome Study and Scleroderma Family Registry. Chi-square test was utilized for the abovementioned comparisons. Chinese patients showed 40.3 % limited (lcSSc) and 59.7 % diffuse (dcSSc) forms of SSc. ATA was found in 59.9 %, ACA in 13.4 %, anti-RNAP3 in 1.3 %, and anti-U1RNP in 18 % of Chinese SSc patients. Compared to US patients (65.1 % lcSSc, 34.9 % dcSSc, ATA in 18.7 %, ACA in 32.4 %, anti-RNAP3 in 17.4 %, and anti-U1RNP in 2.8 %), Chinese SSc patients are significantly higher in dcSSc and the frequencies of ATA and anti-U1RNP, but lower in ACA and anti-RNAP3. In addition, pulmonary fibrosis was observed in 78 % Chinese SSc patients and was strongly associated with the presence of ATA. The present study represents the first report of SSc features in a large group of Chinese patients. Clinical subtypes and the frequencies of SSc-related autoantibodies in Chinese SSc patients are significantly different from those in SSc patients of the US Caucasian descent.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by NIH/NIAID-1U01AI09090-01, NIH/NIAMS-R01-AR055258, P50-AR-054144, K23-AR-061436, the Major National Science and Technology Program of China (grant number 2008ZX10002-002), the Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (11410701800 and 10JC1402100), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 30971594).
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Wang, J., Assassi, S., Guo, G. et al. Clinical and serological features of systemic sclerosis in a Chinese cohort. Clin Rheumatol 32, 617–621 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-012-2145-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-012-2145-7