Publications by authors named "L Terzuoli"
Objective: Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) are a heterogeneous group of systemic autoimmune disorders affecting skeletal muscles but also other organs. There are different forms of IIM, each with peculiar clinical manifestations and prognosis. Accordingly, several autoantibodies have been described in IIM, with different prevalence in the different forms of the disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnti-double-stranded DNA antibodies (anti-dsDNA) are considered a specific marker for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Though the Farr technique was once the reference method for their detection, it has been almost entirely replaced by more recently developed assays. However, there is still no solid evidence of the commutability of these methods in terms of diagnostic accuracy and their correlation with the Crithidia luciliae immunofluorescence test (CLIFT).
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- Autoantibodies against extractable nuclear antigens (ENA) are essential for diagnosing systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARD), and new methods allow for simultaneous detection of multiple anti-ENA reactivities.
- The study compared eight different immunoassays on sera from 60 SARD patients, 10 inflammatory arthritis patients, and 10 healthy donors to assess their sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy.
- Results showed good agreement among methods (average kappa of 0.82) and high specificity, but there were notable differences in analytical sensitivity, highlighting the need for clinicians to understand the diagnostic capabilities of the assays used.
Article Synopsis
- Strict dietary compliance is crucial for celiac patients, but there are no clear guidelines to measure it effectively; recent studies suggest testing for gluten immunogenic peptides (GIPs) in feces could be a useful method.
- A study involving 55 celiac patients (both adults and children) assessed dietary compliance using various methods, including a questionnaire and testing for anti-tTG antibodies, while analyzing fecal samples for GIPs.
- The results showed that GIPs testing identified more non-compliant patients than traditional methods, indicating that this fecal assay could be a more reliable and direct way to assess adherence to a gluten-free diet.
Background: Autoantibodies against-phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) are specific markers of idiopathic membranous nephropathy (iMN). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is becoming the preferred method in many laboratories for the determination of anti-PLA2R antibodies, because it provides quantitative results, and is not prone to subjective interpretation, as is the case with indirect immunofluorescence assay.
Methods: The purpose of our study was to determine the diagnostic performance of serum PLA2R antibodies detected by commercially available ELISA in a large Italian multicenter cohort of patients with biopsy-proven iMN and in patients with other renal diseases, with special focus on evaluating the optimal cut-off value to discriminate positive and negative results.