Autoantibodies and Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Colombian Children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Background: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) is the most common inflammatory joint disease in children. JIA and autoimmune inflammatory Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases share common etiologic mechanisms, including genetic predisposition and environmental influences.

Objective: To Investigate association between gastrointestinal, rheumatologic clinical variables and the presence of autoantibodies in patients with JIA in treatment.

Methodology: In a cross-sectional study of patients with JIA according to diagnostic criteria and the ILAR classification. GI symptoms and autoantibody expression were evaluated with respect to their association with JIA clinical variables. Anti-Saccharomyces Cerevisiae IgG/IgA (ASCA), 6 antigen associated with anti polymorphonuclear neutrophil (ANCA), anti Transglutaminase (tTG) IgG/IgA, anti deaminated gliadin peptide (DGP) IgG/IgA autoantibodies, ANAS and IgA were measured in all patients. The association between clinical variables and auto-antibodies were evaluated using the Fisher test with significant value of p <0.05. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the all institutions.

Results: Samples were collected from ninety-seven patients, 63% of whom were female. The average age was 14 years. The JIA subtype associated with the most common GI symptoms was enthesitis- related arthritis. Of these patients, 44.3% and 14% reported abdominal pain and diarrhea, respectively. Anti-DPG and anti-tTG antibodies were found in 9.28% and 7.22%, respectively and 11.34% were positive for p-ANCA, and 2% were positive for ASCA.

Conclusion: GI symptoms and autoantibodies associated with inflammation of the GI mucosa were detected in JIA patients but were not associated with autoantibodies or clinical variables. However, it is the monitoring of these patients diagnosis is important.