The Prevalence and Clinical Relevance of the DFS Immunofluorescence Staining Pattern in a Large ANA-Positive Cohort

Frontiers in Medicine

article

Chuiwen Deng¹  Anqi Wang¹  Chaojun Hu¹  Wen Zhang¹  Xiaofeng Zeng¹  Yunyun Fei¹ 

[1]Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College

[2]National Clinical Research Center for Dermatologic and Immunologic Diseases ,(NCRC-DID), Ministry of Science & Technology

[3]State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College

[4]Key Laboratory of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Ministry of Education

关键词: antinuclear antibody;    indirect immunofluorescence;    prevalence;    dense fine speckled pattern;    pathological conditions;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2022.829436

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Background Although the dense fine speckled (DFS) immunofluorescence staining pattern has been studied by various researchers in recent years, its clinical associations remain unspecified. Thus, we performed a retrospective study in a non-selective population to explore the prevalence of this enigmatic antinuclear antibody (ANA) pattern and to determine its possible clinical associations with any identifiable pathology. Methods We retrieved the results of ANA testing ordered by various departments in 2019 to study the prevalence of DFS pattern. Demographic characteristics and clinical features of these participants were also collected from the electronic medical record system. Correlation analysis was made to study its clinical associations and a p -value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The prevalence of ANA positivity was 37.4% among 72,204 serum samples of which the median age was 44 (interquartile range: 31, 56) years old and 68.0% were women. The prevalence of the DFS staining pattern was 1.1% in the total population and accounted for 3.1% in the ANA-positive population. There were 97.6% of these cases displaying the DFS pattern with a low titer of ANA (≤1:320; starting serum dilution: 1:100). We found that this pattern correlated with several pathological conditions, such as skin disorders (25.1%), alopecia (4.6%), and obstetric complications (6.6%). Conclusion The presence of the DFS immunofluorescence staining pattern may accompany several pathological conditions and may be a signal of localized inflammation within certain organs or tissues, especially the skin.

【 授权许可】

CC BY