Positive antinuclear antibodies can actually explain so many problems

Antinuclear antibody is an item in the serum test. If it shows positive, it is very likely that you have rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis, Sjögren's syndrome and other diseases, which often occur in the elderly. Experts remind that if the blood test shows that the patient is positive for antinuclear antibodies, he or she must undergo correct examination and treatment based on his or her actual situation.

1. What does a positive antinuclear antibody mean?

1. ana has important diagnostic value for many autoimmune diseases. ana is most common in systemic lupus erythematosus and mixed connective tissue disease. Positive results may also be found in rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's syndrome, systemic sclerosis, etc. Low titer ana can occur in chronic active hepatitis, tuberculosis, myasthenia gravis, chronic thyroiditis, etc., and can also be detected in normal elderly people. Many patients who received the test report did not understand the nuclear type of each antinuclear antibody, but generally speaking, those with an ana titer greater than 1:80 should be highly suspected of autoimmune disease, and the higher the titer, the higher the suspicion.

2. In actual clinical testing, the first step in detecting antinuclear antibodies is to conduct a preliminary screening test to determine whether the patient's serum ana is positive, and then further test each subclass of ana. The initial screening test generally uses indirect immunofluorescence detection, which is the standard screening method for ana detection. The positive results of ana can be reported as: homogeneous type, spotted type, nucleolar type, centromere type, etc. The determination of different karyotypes has important reference value for the next step of testing and clinical diagnosis.

2. Diagnosis of positive antinuclear antibodies

1. Positive antinuclear antibodies indicate the possibility of connective tissue disease in patients, but it still needs to be combined with the patient's clinical manifestations and the diagnostic criteria of various connective tissue diseases.

2. The susceptible population for connective tissue diseases is generally young and middle-aged women. The titer of autoantibodies in elderly patients will increase, but generally at a low level.

3. Antinuclear antibodies are a general term for a large class of autoantibodies. ANA positivity is further classified into autoantibodies specific to multiple nuclear antigen components. Different fluorescent karyotypes can be distinguished based on the fluorescence model of indirect immunofluorescence (the antigen substrates are HEP-2 and liver slices). Different karyotypes also have diagnostic significance. For example, SLE is mostly homogeneous.

4. Different connective tissue diseases may have characteristic antibodies: for example, SLE-related autoantibodies include sm antibodies, ds-DNA antibodies, and JO-1 antibodies related to dermatomyositis.

5. It is more valuable to first understand the autoantibody spectrum of different connective tissue diseases and then further combine it with clinical manifestations. After recognizing the diagnosis of antinuclear antibody ana positive, the patient must actively cooperate during the antinuclear antibody ana positive process. If they do not cooperate, they will not have a good understanding of their own problems. This is especially true for the elderly. Moreover, after the diagnosis, they can also consult if they do not understand something.