TY - JOUR T1 - Specific Antinuclear Antibody Level Changes after B Cell Depletion Therapy in Systemic Sclerosis Are Associated with Improvement of Skin Thickening JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 247 LP - 249 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.150105 VL - 43 IS - 1 AU - CAROLIEN BONROY AU - VANESSA SMITH AU - ELLEN DESCHEPPER AU - FILIP DE KEYSER AU - KATRIEN DEVREESE Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/43/1/247.abstract N2 - To the Editor:B cell depletion therapy using rituximab (RTX) has emerged as a promising therapy in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Our group reported a clinical benefit on skin thickening when RTX (2 × 1000 mg) in combination with methylprednisolone (100 mg) was administered at months 0 and 61. The rationale behind the use of B cell depletion in SSc treatment is based on the growing evidence that B cells play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease2,3. In addition, SSc-associated antinuclear antibody (ANA) are present in the majority of patients, but are generally accepted to be rather static markers, primarily important in diagnosis rather than in followup4. Moreover, conflicting results have been published5 on the change in disease-specific ANA titers in relation to clinical response in other connective diseases (e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis) after RTX. To our knowledge, no studies in SSc are available documenting the longterm effect of RTX on these autoantibody levels.In this letter we report the 2-year serologic followup data (months 0, 3, 6, 12, 15, 18, and 24) on the same 8 patients with SSc with diffuse skin involvement (dcSSc) who were included in our initial RTX studies1,6. The idea was to evaluate the relationship between SSc-ANA level changes and clinical response. To document this latter relationship, we performed … Address correspondence to C. Bonroy, Department of Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Ghent University Hospital 2P8, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium. E-mail: carolien.bonroy{at}uzgent.be ER -