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Serum adenosine deaminase activity is increased in systemic lupus erythematosus patients and correlated with disease activity

Immunologic Research volume 66, pages 299–304 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Adenosine deaminase (ADA) has been found to be involved in autoimmune disease progression. To assess the potential application of serum ADA activity in diagnosing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and evaluating SLE disease activity, we investigated the serum ADA activity of 120 SLE patients and 120 healthy controls in the present study. The results showed that serum ADA activity in SLE patients was significantly increased (median (IQR) = 14 (11–19) U/L) compared with that in healthy controls (median (IQR) = 8 (7–10) U/L). Based on a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the optimal cut-off value for using serum ADA activity to diagnose SLE patients was 10.5 U/L (specificity, 84.2%; sensitivity, 78.3%). The diagnostic performance of serum ADA activity for SLE patients was better than that of other conventional haematology markers. Moreover, serum ADA activity displayed an increasing trend with increasing SLE disease activity. Spearman’s correlation analysis showed that serum ADA activity was positively correlated with SLE disease activity. These findings suggest that serum ADA activity could be a diagnostic marker for SLE; moreover, measuring serum ADA activity may be helpful for evaluating and monitoring the disease activity of SLE patients.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81572974).

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Author notes

  1. Z.G. and G.Z. contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Diagnosis, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xinsi Road, Xi’an, Shanxi, 710038, China

    Zhao-wei Gao, Guan-hua Zhao, Zhe Zhang, Jing Huang, Zi-yue Li, Hui-zhong Zhang & Ke Dong

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  1. Zhao-wei Gao
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  2. Guan-hua Zhao
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Correspondence to Hui-zhong Zhang or Ke Dong.

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This project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University (TDLL-20151209), and informed consent was not required.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Gao, Zw., Zhao, Gh., Zhang, Z. et al. Serum adenosine deaminase activity is increased in systemic lupus erythematosus patients and correlated with disease activity. Immunol Res 66, 299–304 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-018-8984-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-018-8984-9

Keywords

  • SLE
  • ADA
  • Diagnosis
  • Disease activity