Determination and Prevalence of Antinuclear Antibody (ANA) Patterns in Autoimmune Disorders in a Tertiary Care Hospital, Jaipur

Introduction: Autoimmunity is the immune response of antibodies against normal cellular components. With the advent of serological testing for autoimmune disorders, detection of anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) by indirect immunofluorescence method became the gold standard. ANA screening is non-specific, reliable and a quick way and identifies immunofluorescent patterns linked to autoimmune disorders. Aim: This study was undertaken to identify the prevalence of ANA patterns amongst the various demo graph presented in a tertiary care hospital in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Material and Method: 100 serum samples were screened by indirect immunofluorescence microscopy in the duration of July 2021 to October 2021. Results: 27% of the serum samples presented with positive ANA patterns out of which 62.96% were nuclear speckled, followed by 22.22% of nuclear homogenous pattern and 7.40% were observed to be cytoplasmic speckled. The age bracket with higher positivity were 20-40 years (28%) and 40-60 (28%). There was female predominance noted in the ANA positivity. Conclusion: Nuclear speckled was the most frequent pattern, few unusual patterns were also observed. An observational study is needed to understand not only the epidemiology of autoimmune disorders but also the predictive value of ANA IIF in clinical setup, besides considering the possibility of taking up IIF as a screening tool for autoimmune disorders. Keywords: Antinuclear antibody (ANA), indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), autoantibody.