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Background: Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) has an important role in inflammation, immunity, and atherosclerosis. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease featuring both joint damage and atherosclerosis. We investigated whether the plasma PTX3 level was associated with progression of joint destruction and subclinical atherosclerosis in RA patients.Methods: Plasma PTX3 levels were measured in 72 women with RA and 80 female control subjects. In RA patients, we also evaluated clinical characteristics, medications, and at one and three years, joint damage and atherosclerosis. Then we investigated whether PTX3 was associated with progression of joint destruction or an increase of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT).Results: Plasma PTX3 levels were significantly higher in the RA patients than in healthy controls (4.05 ± 2.91 ng/mL vs. 1.61 ± 1.05 ng/mL, p < .001). By multivariate linear regression analysis, the plasma pentraxin 3 level was independently associated with radiographic progression of joint damage for 3 years in the RA patients after adjustment for age, disease duration, body mass index, rheumatoid factor, MMP-3, Disease Activity Score 28-ESR, postmenopausal status, current use of corticosteroids and biologic use. On the other hands, pentraxin 3 was not associated with an increase of carotid intima-media thickness in RA patients.Conclusion: Female RA patients had elevated plasma PTX3 levels compared with control female subjects. PTX3 was independently associated with radiographic progression of joint damage in the RA patients, but not with carotid atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Using an expert- and data-driven methodology, we have constructed the first clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for adult Still's disease (ASD) after complete systematic review (SR) of the literature based upon the Medical Information Network Distribution Service (Minds) procedure. Methods: The CPG committee for ASD organized by the Research Team for Autoimmune Diseases, the Research Program for Intractable Disease of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare has developed CPG for ASD 2017, according to the procedure proposed by Minds. The CPG development process includes (1) clarification of the purpose of CPG, (2) organization of the steering committee, (3) organization of the CPG committee and secretariat, (4) defining the scope (setting of clinical questions (CQs)), (5) SR, (6) development of recommendations, (7) drafting the CPG, (8) external evaluation and public comments, and (9) release. Because we wanted to construct CPG for ASD to encompass both adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) and adult patients with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA), we also included SR data from sJIA in this study. Results: Twenty-six CQs were selected and roughly divided into the following items: (1) clinical findings (CQs 1-4), (2) laboratory findings (CQs 5-8), (3) complications (CQs 9-13), (4) treatment with oral medicine (CQs 14-19), (5) treatment with biological reagents (CQs 20-23), and (6) treatments for sJIA (CQs 25-26). Recommendations and the strength of the recommendations for these CQs were decided by a modified Delphi method. Conclusion: We have developed the first published CPG for ASD including AOSD and sJIA, which includes 26 CQs and recommendations. This guideline will help rheumatologists, non-specialized physicians, other healthcare providers, medical and health-related students, and patients and their family members to understand and treat ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the performance of the 2012 Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics criteria (SLICC-12) on classifying systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in an uncontrolled multi-centered study with real-life scenario of the patients in Japan. Methods: This study comprised 495 patients with SLE or non-SLE rheumatic diseases and allied conditions from 12 institutes in Japan. Chart review of each patient was performed by the 27 expert rheumatologists and diagnosis of 487 cases reached to the consensus. Value of the SLICC-12 on SLE classification was analyzed comparing with the 1997 revised American College of Rheumatology SLE classification criteria (ACR-97) employing the expert-consented diagnoses. Results: Compared to the ACR-97, the SLICC-12 had a higher sensitivity (ACR-97 vs. SLICC-12: 0.88 vs. 0.99, p<.01) and comparable specificity (0.85 vs. 0.80). The rate of misclassification (0.14 vs. 0.11) or the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (0.863 vs. 0.894) was not statistically different. In the cases that diagnoses corresponded in high rates among experts, both criteria showed high accordance of SLE classification over 85% with the expert diagnoses. Conclusion: Although employment of SLICC-12 for the classification for SLE should be carefully considered, the SLICC-12 showed the higher sensitivity on classifying SLE in Japanese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]