The etiology of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains to date unknown. However, according to the main hypothesis, it has been
proposed that several factors are contributing to its development. Among them, we find the socio-demographic factors. The
aim of this study is to descript the socio-demographic characteristics and to investigate the association of serological status
and disease parameters of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Moroccan patients by comparing them with a control group. The
study population comprised a cohort of 111 patients with RA recruited from the military hospital in Rabat and 212
individuals of the control group (CG) recruited from the National Blood Transfusion Center of Rabat. All patients were
tested for auto-antibodies: cyclic citrullinated peptide (ACPA or anti-CCP2), rheumatoid factor (RF), antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA), antibodies of antigenic specificity (ENA profile) and anti-DNA. Females showed predominance with
84.68% of RA patients. The descriptive analysis between patients and controls group showed that exists significant
differences were found regarding gender, age, BMI, alcohol, inbred marriage and family history. Rheumatoid factor (RF),
anti-citrullinated peptide antibody (ACPA or anti-CCP2), antinuclear auto-antibodies (ANA), antibodies of antigenic
specificity (ENA profile) and anti DNA were detected in RA patients and it showed a high percentage of 95.5%, 80%,
84.7%, 45% and 5.4%, respectively. Furthermore, both RF and ACPA were presented in 80% of RA patients. We observed
that ACPA present a positive correlation for gender. On the other hand, RF presents no significant correlation with sociodemographic characteristics. In this study, we describe disease features that are unique to Moroccan patients and
demonstrate that RA has a significant disease burden. Our RA patients with a high prevalence of RF and ACPA appear to have more active and severe disease and maybe the socio-demographic characteristics increase the probability of having RA
disease. Our findings may help provide relevant information on the immunological profile of our RA patients.
Keywords: Rheumatoid arthritis, Socio-demographic characteristics, Rheumatoid factor, anti-cyclic citrullinated
peptide, Antinuclear auto-antibodies, Moroccan Patients
Publication date: 01/12/2021
https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2021/December/MS_IJBPAS_2021_DEC_SPCL_2059.pdf
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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2021/10.12.2059
