| Antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) are common features of autoimmune connective tissue diseases. There are newer
techniques that are continuously put forward to facilitate diagnosis in connective tissue disease (CTD)
patients.Immunofluorescence (IF) is the most used and “gold standard” test for diagnosis, and the other is Enzyme-
Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) as a routine test. For Immunoblotting (IB) assay, euroimmune ANA profiles are
used, which provide a qualitative in vitro assay for human autoantibodies to 15 different antigens. This study was
conducted to compare three techniques (IF, IB, ELISA) in detection of ANA. If the sensitivity and specificity of IB superior
to other methods, we can replace IF and ELISA with IB. An analytical cross-sectional study of 85 sera from patients with
Systemic lupus erythematous (SLE), Systemic sclerosis (SSc) and Dermatomyosities(DM) was undertaken at
rheumatology and nephrology department and clinic of Emam Reza hospital from 2010-11-01 to 2011-10-30. Sera
collected and stored at -80˚c. Then they were used to detection of ANA with three techniques. Of all sera, 63 (74.1%) were
ELISA positive and 22 (25.9%) were negative ELISA. Seventy four (87.1%) IF and IB positive and 11 (12.6%) IF and IB
negative were observed. The sensitivity and specificity of IB in comparison with IF was 98.65% and 90.91%, respectively.
In comparison with ELISA, we found 93.65% and 31.82% of sensitivity and specificity for IB method. Immunoblotting has
high sensitivity and specificity, and it can be used as a choice test in screening of ANA. |