V 410
Anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) in uveitis
C. Urbat, J. A. Reichelt, B. Wiechens, B. Nölle
Background: Questions on cellular immunoreactivity play a superior role and are well to the fore of humoral immunity during last years. However, we are interested in the detection of anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) and their diagnostic importance in ocular inflammatory disorders.
Patients and Methods: ANA were tested in sera of 256 healthy persons (group A), of 239 uveitis patients (group B), and of 685 patients with various systemic autoimmune disorders (group C). An indirect immunofluorescence was applied on Hep-2 cells, human retina and/or cultured human retinal pigment epithelium.
Results: Up to 5% of healthy persons have ANA within their serum, although the levels were low in most cases. In uveitis or systemic autoimmunity the levels of ANA were higher and the frequency was significantly increased (group B 13,6%; group C 14,5%). The levels of ANA differed between several uveitis forms: acute anterior uveitis (n=43, 7%), toxoplasmotic-chorioretinitis (n=17, 6%), intermediate uveitis (n=37, 19%), chronic anterior uveitis (n=58, 28%), posterior uveitis (n=81, 28%). Patients suffering from iuvenile chronic arthritis and chronic anterior uveitis showed ANA in 100%, high levels of ANA were also seen in patients with peripheral multifocal chorioretinitis (45%). ANA detection on human retina correlated well to that on Hep-2 cells/mouse tissue (r=0.68, n=215). Fluorescence pattern of ANA on RPE differed to the well known pattern on Hep-2 cells.
Conclusions: Detection of ANA is diagnostically guiding in chronic iridocyclitis, however its differentialdiagnostic importance in uveitis in general is low. In those uveitis cases with ANA this claims for another dysregulation of the humoral immune system among various other factors.
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