[Possibilities of differentiation of antinuclear antibodies]

Antinuclear antibodies can give diagnostic informations according to their titre values, the belonging to different classes of immune globulins and on the basis of different patterns of immunofluorescence connection. The determination of granulocyte-specific antibodies which frequently appear in progressive chronic polyarthritis further contributes to the differential-diagnostic classification of diseases of the connective tissue. An antibody against extractable nuclear antigen is specific for the so-called mixed connective tissue disease, an antimitochondrial antibody for the pseudo-LE-syndrome. Moreover, the own examinations resulted in a particularly high and frequent ability of complement fixation of the antinuclear factors in systematic lupus erythematosus and sclerodermy. In contrast to this in the progressive chronic polyarthritis the complement fixation was clearly more insignificant.