Differential acute phase response due to infection in AIRDs: A cross-sectional multi-centre study based on RA and SLE
Keywords:
AIRDS, SLE, AS, RA, NLR, CRP, procalcitonin, inflammatory markers, infectionAbstract
Aim: To explore the differences in acute phase responses between infection and disease flare and between viral and bacterial infections.
Methods: The retro-prospective, cross-sectional, multi-center study considered subjects who had undergone treatment for infection or disease flare between 2019 to 2021. The patients fulfilling the ACR/EULAR 2010 criteria and 2019 EULAR/ACR criteria for RA and SLE respectively, were recruited from three centers. Patients who did not have autoimmune rheumatic disease or other immune-mediated diseases were considered as controls. The participants were classified into subgroups namely ‘overall’, ‘without autoimmune rheumatic disease’, ‘SLE’ and ‘RA’. The infectious and non-infectious groups, and the bacterial and viral disease groups were compared to evaluate the differences in the parameters namely age, gender, total leucocyte count (TLC), neutrophil count(N), lymphocytes count (L) NLR, CRP and procalcitonin. Student t-test was used for the evaluation of continuous data and chi-square test for categorical data. ROC curves were plotted. The cutoff points of variable at 80% and 90% sensitivity and specificity were estimated for each subgroup to differentiate infection and no-infection.
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