The plasma concentrations of von Willebrand factor antigen (vWF:Ag) were determined in 101 patients who had the following diagnoses: vasculitis 8 patients, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) 51, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) 28, asthma 7, hereditary angioedema 7.
Patients with Sjögren's syndrome (SS) in association with either Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) or Sclerodactyly were tested for HLA-A, B and Dr antigens and the phenotypes of the 4th component of complement (CA).
One hundred and eighteen unrelated Greek patients with classic rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were tissue-typed for HLA-A, -B, -DR antigens and the frequency was compared to that of healthy controls.
The frequencies of Bf*S in DR4 positive and DR4 negative RA were similar so that the findings were not accounted for by linkage disequilibrium between DR4 and Bf*S.
We studied the frequencies of red cell enzyme types, AcP, PGM1 and EsD in 213 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatic heart disease (RHD), scleroderma (Scl) and psoriatic arthropathy (PsA).
In an attempt to study the variation of associations between HLA and rheumatoid disease a population of 44 Ashkenazi and 29 non-Ashkenazi patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis were tested for HLA-A, B, C and DR antigens and compared with the relevant control groups.
To test the pathogenetic role of the phenotype MZ of alpha 1-antitrypsin/alpha 1-protease inhibitor (PI) in acute anterior uveitis (AAU) and in different rheumatic diseases we examined 360 unrelated patients including 93 with AAU alone, 24 patients with AAU and ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 21 patients with AAU and Reiter's disease (RD), 26 patients with AAU, AS, and RD 54 patients with AS alone, 16 patients with RD alone, 115 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) alone, and 11 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PA) alone.
Serum amyloid A protein (SAA) is a precursor for a major component of amyloid fibrils, which, upon deposition, cause secondary amyloidosis in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
The immunoglobulin allotype Glm(2) was significantly increased in frequency in the RA patients, and analysis showed that of the seven patients carrying Bw62-DR4, five were G1m(2) positive.
This finding suggests that auto-antibody-defined subgroups of RA may be genetically heterogeneous with respect to Bf and confirms the status of Bf SS phenotype as a marker for RA susceptibility and/or severity.