The value of anti‐rods and rings antibodies in Western China population: A retrospective study

Abstract

The study aimed to retrospectively investigate the clinical significance of anti‐rods and rings (anti‐RR) antibodies in antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) test samples of western China. Between January 2016 and November 2018, the laboratory data and clinical details of patients with positive anti‐RR antibodies were collected and analysed. The results showed that total of 197 227 patients tested, 109 453 patients presented with positive ANAs (55.50%), but only 107 patients with positive anti‐RR antibodies (0.10%), including 51 females and 56 males. Diagnose were established in 51 of 107 patients: 25 were hepatopathy (HCV 8/25, HBV 12/25); 13 were autoimmune diseases (AID); and 7 were renal insufficiency; 6 were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We make the conclusions that anti‐RR antibodies have a low prevalence, and there is no gender difference. Anti‐RR antibodies exist other diseases besides hepatitis C, such as HBV, some autoimmune diseases, renal insufficiency and COPD, which we need further investigation.

The clinical value of indirect immunofluorescence for screening anti-rods and rings antibodies: A retrospective study of two centers in China

“…Anti-RR antibodies mainly appear in adults (≥ 41 years old), and the ratio of males to females was 1/1.3 and 1/1.5. By analyzing the patients with the RR pattern, we observed that fluorescence patterns of patients with RR pattern are mainly the isolated RR pattern, which was different from the results reported by Zhang L. et al ( 38 ) where the mixture of the speckled pattern was the most common. But in different diseases, the distribution of RR patterns was different, such as most healthy people with the isolated RR pattern, while CTDs patients mainly with the complex RR pattern, which may be because autoantibodies were much more common in CTDs than that in other diseases ( 41 ).…”

“…Our study indicates that the RR pattern can exist in a variety of other diseases, such as AIDs, pulmonary diseases, nephropathy diseases, and even in healthy people. It is similar to a recent report from western China ( 38 ). This shows that the RR pattern is not only related to the antiviral treatment, but also possibly a consequence of other factors such as alterations in immune regulation caused by hepatitis or by autoimmune diseases, and even unknown environmental or genetic factors in different populations ( 23 , 30 ).…”

“…This seems to indicate that anti-RR is a druginduced autoantibody. However, recently some scholars also have found that anti-RR antibodies can exist in patients with hepatitis C before antiviral treatment or non-hepatitis C patients, patients with the therapy of other drugs, and even healthy people (36)(37)(38). The interaction between HCV protein and RR structure may not be necessary.…”

“…Interestingly, our study found that hepatic disease had the highest prevalence of RR pattern in PUMCH, and the prevalence of RR pattern for PBC and AIH is also higher than that in other AIDs. It is reported that the appearance of anti-RR may be a manifestation of metabolic disorders, while, the liver is the most important organ involved in metabolism ( 38 ). In PBC and AIH, the progression of the disease is related to the systematic increase of autoreactive antibodies and the possible massive infiltration of autoreactive lymphocytes in the liver ( 42 ).…”

The value of anti-rods and rings antibodies in patients with nonhepatitis virus infection

“…In a similar study, Zhang et al studied the same fluorescence patterns and reported the frequency (0.10%) in Han Chinese population. [ 1 ] Similarly, Climent et al reported that 87 patients from 20,000 serum samples had the anti-RR patterns during a 4-year retrospective study. [ 21 ] However, the frequency of anti-RR antibodies was higher in chronic HCV infection patients and tissue samples than in the general population.…”