Rheumatoid Factor in Human Schistosomiasis

摘要

The Rheumatoid Factor(s) (RF), which is an antibody specific for the Fc fragment of IgG, exists not only in Rheumatoid Arthritis and other rheumatological diseases but in a variety of chronic infections. These include malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis; visceral larva migrans; schistosomiasis; tuberculosis; leprosy; bacterial endocarditis; chronic salmonella bacteremia and acute typhoid and paratyphoid fever. The role of RF in these infections is not clear, but it has been proposed that IgM RF may modulate the immune response aid in mononuclear phagocytic clearance of Circulating Immune Complex (CIC) by increasing the size of the complex and possibly avoiding deposition on the glomerular basement membrane, or represent non-specific polyclonal B lymphocyte activation. The rheumatoid factor (RF) exists in a variety of chronic infections. Schistosomiasis is thought to be one of the chronic infections during which RF is synthesized. In the present study, the sera of 88 schistosomiasis patients with different stages of disease-associated complications (heaviness of infection; hepatosplenomegaly and intestinal polyps) were screened for RF positivity by the latex agglutination test. The proportion of patients having positive RF was not significantly different than in the normal healthy population, and in those patients with positive RF the titer was quite low. Reprints. (AW)