Studying of B-cell differentiation and macrophage colony-stimulating factors as new players in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis

Authors

Abstract

Background/aim
There is an imperative, yet unmet need for the development of a biomarker panel for progression of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This study aimed to investigate the reliability of B-cell differentiation factor (BCDF) and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (MCSF) as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of RA.
Patients and methods
A total of 25 RA patients were enrolled and divided into three subgroups according to the disease activity score, remission/minimal, moderate, and severe, in addition to 20 healthy controls. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure serum BCDF, MCSF, and interleukin (IL)-2, and the calorimetric method was used to measure immunoglobulin G (IgG). In addition, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate was measured at 1 h in the RA patients.
Results
BCDF, MCSF, and IgG were significantly higher in the RA patients compared with the controls. BCDF was significantly higher in the severe disease group compared with the remission/mild and the moderate disease groups, whereas IgG was significantly higher among the moderate disease group compared with the remission/mild disease group, and among the severe disease group compared with the remission/mild disease group, whereas the erythrocyte sedimentation rate did not show any significant difference between the three subgroups of the disease group. BCDF delineates RA from controls at a cut-off value of 102 pg/ml, whereas at a cut-off value of 37.5 ng/l MCSF delineates RA from controls.
Conclusion
Serum BCDF and MCSF can be used as RA diagnostic biomarkers, whereas BCDF can be used additionally as a prognostic biomarker.

Keywords

Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research
Volume 12, Issue 2
July 2017
Pages 79-85

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics