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Increased levels of factor H antibodies present in patients with APS, recurrent thrombosis
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Patients with antiphospholipid syndrome who had recurring venous thrombosis had increased levels of autoantibodies to factor H, according to recently published research.
Researchers studied a Serbian cohort of 73 patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome (pAPS) and 33 patients with secondary APS (sAPS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and an Italian cohort of 15 patients with pAPS and 25 patients with sAPS, all of whom had available data from serum analysis of associated autoantibodies, lupus anticoagulant, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), complement and other serological data. An additional Swedish cohort with 132 patients with nonrecurrent and 134 patients with recurrent () was selected in whom 48% had available anti-cardiolipin and other serological data. A group of 163 healthy Swedish participants were matched by age and sex to 115 patients in the Serbian cohort and 40 patients in the Italian cohort as a control group.
Significantly increased levels of factor H autoantibodies were seen in patients with APS compared to healthy volunteers. Six of the 163 healthy participants matched to the Serbian group and two patients matched to the Italian cohort had positive tests for factor H antibodies compared to 10 of 86 patients in the Serbian cohort and 14 of 26 patients in the Italian cohort from whom data was available.
In all subsets of patients with thrombosis, factor H antibodies were elevated compared to healthy participants and Chi-square testing revealed an association with high levels of factor H antibodies and patients with recurrent VTE. Other associations were observed but none met statistical significance. – by Shirley Pulawski
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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