SAN DIEGO—Rheumatologists are learning more about what autoantibodies, along with genetic and environmental factors, may predict the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) years before symptoms appear. Speaking at the Clinical Research Conference at the 2013 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, held October 26–30, two researchers clarified recent findings in these areas that may one day enable rheumatologists to treat inflammation in a preclinical disease phase. [Editor’s Note: This session was recorded and is available via ACR SessionSelect at www.rheumatology.org.]
Paraphrasing a famous line from Shakespeare, Solbritt Rantapää-Dahlqvist, MD, professor of public health and clinical medicine at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, noted that in RA, “to be or not to be antibody positive, that is the question!” She and her colleagues looked at how the development of 10 critical antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCP) might predict RA onset as many as seven years before clinical symptoms appear and what changes occurred in future RA patients’ immune responses up to a few weeks before disease onset. Their research was published in Arthritis & Rheumatism in April 2013.1
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