Antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) have been found in different proportions in the juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) population. The majority of studies have been done in children or mixed population (children plus adults).
The objective of the study was to study the prevalence of anti-CCP in JIA adult patients.
Anti-CCP3 was searched for in 49 adult patients with JIA and associated with clinical and demographics data. As comparisons, 156 patients with adult rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 100 healthy volunteers were studied.
Nine patients (18.3%) were positive for anti-CCP3. All of them had the polyarthritis form. This antibody was more common in JIA than in control subjects (P = 0.0002) and less common in JIA than in adult RA patients (P < 0.0001), but the rheumatoid factor polyarticular form of JIA had the same prevalence as in adult RA patients (P = 0.33).In JIA patients, anti-CCP had a positive association with the presence of rheumatoid factor (P < 0.0001), worse functional status (P = 0.04), need for orthopedic surgery (P = 0.01), and later disease onset (P = 0.0007).
In adult patients with JIA, the prevalence of anti-CCP3 is 18%, and its presence may define a sample of patients with worse prognosis.