P 152 Anticardiolipin antibodies in Behçet's disease

Posters

129 s

P 151

Anticardiolipin antibodies in Adamantiades-Behget's disease CC. Zouboulis 1, P. BOttner 3, B. Tebbe ~, CE. Orfanos 1

Recurrent vasculitis and vascular thrombosis are key feature of Adamantiades-Beh~et's disease. Recurrent vascular thrombosis, thrombocytopenia and recurrent fetal loss have also been reported to correlate with raised levels of circulating anticardiolipin antibodies (ACA), especially in autoimmune diseases. We therefore performed a prospective study to determine the serum levels of ACA, including their isotypes, and to assess their frequency and clinical relevance in patients with Adamantiades-Beh~et's disease. Correlations between ACA and the clinical features were statistically evaluated and meta-analysis of the available data was carried out. Moderately raised levels of circulating ACA were found in 14 of 30 patients with active Adamantiades-Beh~et's disease (46.7%) who were not receiving treatment. Three patients showed the IgG isotype, 9 the IgM isotype, and 2 had both IgG and IgM isotypes. A positive association between

erythema nodosum and histologically confirmed cutaneous vasculitis and the presence of circulating ACA of the IgM isotype was determined (P = .017 and .018, respectively), whereas the IgG isotype did not correlate with any clinical feature. Evaluation of data on other clinical manifestations showed no correlation, either with the IgG or IgM isotypes. In particular, there was no association of circulating ACA with the incidence of thrombosis, systemic vasculitis, retinal involvement or neurological features. These results suggest that, ACA do not play a major pathogenetic role in Adamantiades-Beh~et's disease, but they may serve as an additional marker for a risk of the development of cutaneous vasculitis such as erythema nodosum. 1) Department of Dermatology, 2) Institute for Medical Statistics and Informatics, University Medical Center Steglitz, The Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

P 152

Anticardiolipin antibodies in Behget's disease A. GL~linnaz 1, 0. Hayri 2, O. Taner 1

Anticardiolipin antibodies (ACA) have recently been described in association with arterial and venous thrombosis in connective tissue diseases. Since intravascular thrombosis is a well recognized feature of Behqet' s disease (BD), our study was designed to investigate serum levels of ACA IgG and IgM isotypes in patients with BD and to compare these results with the ones of healthy controls. The study group consisted of 25 patients with BD and 25 healthy controls. ACA levels of Ig classes G and M were determined by an ELISA immunoassay method and an abnormal level was taken as being 3 standard deviations above the mean for normal controls. A high incidence of ACA were detected in 5 of 25 patients (20%) with BD. 2 patients had IgG-ab, 2 had IgM-ab and 1 had had both IgG and IgM antibodies. None of the normal

1993- Vol 14, Suppl 1

controls had ACA IgM isotype, but 2 of them had ACA IgG isotype. Though there was no difference in the mean values of ACA IgG isotypes between normal controls and patients with BD, there was a twofold increase in the mean values of ACA IgM isotypes of patients compared to controls (9 uMPL for patients and 5 uMPL for controls). Clinically these 5 patients with high ACA levels were similar to those without raised ACA levels. None of the patients had evidence of cerebral, pulmonary or retinal vascular disease or features previously associated with the presence of ACA in SLE. These results suggest that ACA do not have a major pathogenetic role in the vascular complications of BD. 1) Ege University Medical School Biochemistry Dept. 2) Ege University Medical School International Med. Dept., Izmir, Turkey