The rarity of antinuclear antibody negativity in systemic lupus erythematosus: comment on the article by Merrill et al.

摘要

Antmuclear antibody (ANA) negativity m systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is widely accepted to be rare (<3% of cases) (1,2). In day-to-day clinical practice, a negative ANA result would cause one to be reluctant to accept a diagnosis of SLE rather than some other specified or undifferentiated descriptive diagnosis. In the abatacept study reported by Merrill and colleagues (3), the ANA negativity rate was nearly 20% in the population studied. This, therefore, brings into question how broadly representative this group was of SLE patients and whether the study findings can be generalized at all.