Correlation between anti-Ro/La titers and clinical findings of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune disease with various clinical and serological manifestations. Previous studies have shown the association of SLE and anti-Ro, anti-La and anti-dsDNA autoantibodies with various clinical manifestations. We investigated the relationship between these autoantibodies and clinical findings of our patients with SLE.

Methods: Eighty patients with SLE at Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan from October 1999 to March 2000 were enrolled in the study. Frequencies of various clinical manifestations were calculated. Autoantibodies to Ro, La and dsDNA were measured using ELISA method.

Results: The most frequent clinical findings were arthritis (92.3%), photosensitivity (90.9%) and malar rash (86.1%). The most frequent laboratory findings were positive anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) (94.9%), low serum CH50 hemolytic titer (88.6%) and positive anti-dsDNA level (72.5%). Patients with anemia or photosensitivity had higher titers of anti-Ro antibody (Ab) than those without the respective clinical findings (p = 0.001 and 0.002, respectively). However, patients with proteinuria had lower anti-Ro Ab titers (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between clinical findings and anti-La Ab titers. Patients have higher titers of anti-dsDNA Ab if they had clinical findings of Raynauld's phenomenon, photosensitivity, arthritis, hypocomplementemia (p < 0.001), thrombocytopenia, proteinuria, or serositis (p < 0.05). No correlation was found between renal involvement and titers of various autoantibodies.

Conclusions: Neither anti-Ro, anti-La nor anti-dsDNA antibodies was correlated with renal involvement in patients with SLE. However, patients with proteinuria had significantly lower titers of anti-Ro Ab than those without proteinuria.