Anti-vinculin antibodies as a novel biomarker in Egyptian patients with systemic sclerosis.

Introduction: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disorder that causes vasculopathy and scarring, most commonly in the lungs and skin, but it can also affect other organs. Endothelial vinculin plays a critical role in angiogenesis regulation. Therefore, vinculin overexpression in SSc may give rise to anti-vinculin antibodies, which may contribute to the development of SSc vasculopathy.

Correlations between ultrasonographic findings, clinical scores, and depression in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Objective: This study aimed to explore correlations between the presence of depression, clinical scores, and ultrasonographic (US) grading in osteoarthritis (OA) patients and to clarify if depressive symptoms might cause a discrepancy between US findings and clinical scores.

Material And Methods: Two hundred patients with primary knee OA and 100 healthy hospital volunteers of the same age and sex not complaining of knee troubles participated in this study. We evaluated depressive symptoms in all participants using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scale.