Antinuclear antibody–positive patients should be grouped as a separate category in the classification of juvenile idiopathic arthritis

摘要

We undertook this study to test the hypothesis that in the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR) classification of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), patients with similar characteristics can be classified into different categories. We sought to investigate whether antinuclear antibody (ANA)–positive patients having disease in the ILAR categories of oligoarthritis, rheumatoid factor–negative polyarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and undifferentiated arthritis share homogeneous features and to compare these features with those of ANA-negative patients having the same categories of disease.