High titers of autoantibodies in patients with sickle-cell disease.

Objective: Frequency and titers of autoantibodies in patients with sickle-cell disease (SCD) have been reported as relatively high. In a prospective study of 88 patients, we examined this "hyper-autoreactivity" and its clinical consequences.

Methods: For 1 year, patients with SCD were screened for the presence in their serum of antinuclear, anti-double-stranded DNA, antiextractible nuclear antigens, anticardiolipin antibodies, and rheumatoid factors.

Evaluation of the new multiplexed immunoassay, FIDIS, for simultaneous quantitative determination of antinuclear antibodies and comparison with conventional methods.

Our study was done to evaluate the FIDIS Connective kit (Biomedical Diagnostics, Marne la Vallée, France) for simultaneous quantitative determination in the same sample of 9 antinuclear antibody specificities directed against double-stranded DNA, SSA, SSB, Sm, Sm/RNP, Scl-70, Jo-1, ribosome, and centromere B and to compare it with standardized commercial methods, enzyme immunoassay and immunofluorescence. FIDIS technology constitutes a new multiplexed method using the Luminex 100 system (Luminex, Austin, TX) based on the use of distinct color-coded particles and flow cytometric detection. Serum samples from people with diagnosed rheumatic diseases with well-identified markers of autoimmunity were tested by a retrospective study.