To determine the predictive value for radiological damage of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (anti-CCP) and rheumatoid factor (RF) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Ninety patients with RA were enrolled in this study. All patients had symptom duration of at least one year. Anti-CCP and IgM-RF were evaluated with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and nephelometry methods, respectively. Radiological damage was assessed by Larsen score.
In forward stepwise logistic regression analysis, anti-CCP positivity and RF positivity were seen as significant independent predictors of the radiological outcomes (p = 0.01, p < 0.05, respectively). The combination of these antibodies had the highest risk for erosive joint damage (odds ratio = 25.71; 95% confidence interval, 4.7 to 140.13; p = 0.001).
Our results suggest that the combined use of RF and anti-CCP has greater predictive value for erosive RA than anti-CCP or RF alone, and may facilitate to make a decision about the individual treatment in RA (Tab. 4, Ref. 37). Full Text (Free, PDF) www.bmj.sk.