Table 1.

Mixed model analysis on the antibody measurements upon treatment with rituximab.

Variable	Statistics, Mixed Model Analysis	Timepoints, Mos						p, Mixed Model Analysis^†
Variable	Statistics, Mixed Model Analysis	3	6	12	15	18	24	p, Mixed Model Analysis^†
IgG, g/l	Mean % compared with baseline	99	94	82	90	87	99	0.010
	95% CI^*	85–114	81–108	71–96	78–104	75–102	85–114
	p^#	0.798	0.217	0.001	0.051	0.020	0.785
SSc-ANA IgG, U/ml	Mean % compared with baseline	78	59	41	42	46	50	0.001^‡
	95% CI^*	45–134	34–101	23–72	24–74	25–85	28–88
	p^#	0.200	0.009	0.000	0.000	0.001	0.002
SSc-ANA IgG corrected for total IgG, ratio	Mean % compared with baseline	79	63	50	47	53	52	0.008^‡
	95% CI^*	45–138	36–109	28–89	26–85	29–99	28–91
	p^#	0.243	0.025	0.002	0.001	0.007	0.003
EBV IgG, U/ml	Mean % compared with baseline	94	80	84	84	85	103	0.031
	95% CI^*	75–118	64–100	65–107	67–107	67–109	81–130
	p^#	0.473	0.009	0.050	0.052	0.080	0.772
EBV IgG corrected for total IgG, ratio	Mean % compared with baseline	96	85	101	94	98	104	0.114
	95% CI^*	80–116	71–102	83–124	77–113	80–119	86–126
	p^#	0.588	0.019	0.852	0.351	0.737	0.576

↵† Mixed model analysis performed on the ln transformed values, a statistical significance level of 0.05 was used;
↵‡ for patient 6 (2 SSc-ANA detected), only antitopoisomerase I levels were included in the mixed model analysis.
↵# Pairwise comparison versus baseline: p values in bold face are considered statistically significant (p < 0.0083, Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons).
↵* Bonferroni corrected 95% CI. IgG: immunoglobulin G; SSc: systemic sclerosis; ANA: antinuclear antibodies; EBV: Epstein-Barr virus.