Clinical significance of HEp-2 cell cytoplasmic patterns in anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody associated vasculitis

The study was to investigate the clinical characteristics and significance of antinuclear antibody (ANA) cytoplasmic patterns in ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) from Southwest China. A retrospective study including 232 AAV patients from Peoples Hospital of Deyang City was performed. These included 115 patients with ANA cytoplasmic pattern as observation group and 117 patients without ANA cytoplasmic pattern as control group. Chest involvement (60.00 vs 46.15, P = .035), cardiovascular involvement (5.21 vs 29.91, P < .001), and renal involvement (37.39 vs 77.78, P = .001) were different between groups. Total protein (69.55 vs 64.01, P < .001), triglyceride (1.41 vs 1.18, P = .023), mean cell volume (89.76 vs 87.59, P = .040), and estimated glomerular filtration rate (76.67 vs 50.87, P = .035) were higher in ANA cytoplasmic patterns group. Creatinine (73.00 vs 117.50, P = .011), white blood cell (6.93 vs 8.86, P = .001), platelet (196.0 vs 239.0, P = .017), anti-myeloperoxidase (2.44 vs 3.42, P = .042), and anti-proteinase 3 (1.00 vs 4.93, P = .007) were lower in this group. In multivariate analysis, creatinine (odds ratio [OR] = 1.21, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.06–1.38), triglyceride (OR = 1.97, 95% CI: 1.10–3.48), and anti-myeloperoxidase (OR = 1.64, 95% CI: 1.37–1.95) were independent risk factors of AAV renal involvement. Total protein (OR = .95, 95% CI: 0.91–0.99) was an independent protective factor of AAV renal involvement. Chi-square test showed that speckled pattern was different among anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody patterns (χ(2) = 18.526, P < .001). In summary, HEp-2 cell cytoplasmic patterns have certain clinical significance in AAV, which is a new exploration of the clinical value of ANA.