CORRELATION OF ANA IMMUNOFLUOROSCENT TITRE AND PATTERN DISTRIBUTION WITH CLINICAL FEATURES: JOURNEY BEYOND SLE

Abstract

This is a Retrospective study conducted at Pathology department Bombay Hospital Indore. 300 patients were tested for presence of ANA antibody using indirect immunofluorescent test (IMMUNOSHOP AESKU SLIDES) over the period of one year.

ANA testing by IIF is a highly valuable and time tested technique for diagnosis of autoimmune disorder.  Results should be interpretated in the light of clinical and biochemical findings as normal individuals have positive results on traditional ANA testing. The most definitive result from ANA testing is a negative test. This result, especially when coupled with negative tests on an ANA profile, suggests strongly that ANA associated diseases are unlikely to be present. This imparts a high NPV to ANA IIF tests. Apart from the usually described clinical features this study highlights few of the uncommon isolated clinical features like cytopenias, myopathies and Pyrexia of unknown origin and utility of ANA IIF in establishing diagnosis.

We at our centre perform ANA profile of patients to further classify the disease which is beyond the scope of this article.

Keywords: ANA, Immunofluoroscent, Titre & SLE