Correlation between Anti Cyclic citrulinated peptide (Anti-CCP)antibody titre and disease severity in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid Athritis (RA) is a common immunological disorder with global prevalence of 0.25– 1%. . The disease course is variable ranging from mild disease to severe disability. The mainstay of management in RA is Disease Modifying Anti Rheumatic Drugs (DMARDS). Early detection of disease activity helps in starting the treatment at earliest and also helps in directing aggressive therapy to severe disease, this helps in slowing the disease progression. Laboratory diagnosis of Rheumatoid arthritis is mainly done by detecting the level Rheumatoid factor in blood which has high sensitivity but low specificity. Citrullination of synovial antigens, especially fibrin, is

an active process during synovial inflammation that probably allows the induction of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) antibody in RA patients. Measurement of this Anti-CCP antibody in patient’s serum is diagnostic modality for RA with high specificity compared to RA factor. This study is intended to find the correlation between Anti –CCP antibody and disease activity in Rheumatoid arthritis.