en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/1377809 Comments by Tobias Stolzenberg http://lupus-disease.net/8-types-of-test-to-diagnose-rheumatoid-arthritis.html#IDComment85110022 My name is Tobias Stolzenberg and I am employer at the diagnostic company ORGENTEC Diagnostika. Relating to the anti-CCP antibody test, I want to make a brief note. It&rsquo;s true that these anti-CCP tests are sensitive and quite specific tests for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis. But anti-CCP antibodies are part of a larger class of autoantibodies frequently detected in rheumatoid patients. This class of autoantibodies is called ACPAs, what stands for Antibodies Against Citrullinated Protein / Peptide Antibodies. Recently these ACPAs as a whole have turned up as powerful markers. The Wikipedia Encyclopedia <a href="http://(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-citrullinated_protein_antibody)" target="_blank">(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-citrullinated_protein_antibody)</a> and several scientific articles (I do recommend this review article, published February 2010: The use of citrullinated peptides and proteins for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis: <a href="http://arthritis-research.com/content/12/1/203/abstract)" target="_blank">http://arthritis-research.com/content/12/1/203/ab...</a> give you a fairly comprehensive overview on the topic of ACPA: history of this autoantibody class, their clinical significance, importance for rheumatology and RA diagnostics. Best regards Tobias Stolzenberg Tue, 6 Jul 2010 10:19:42 +0000 http://lupus-disease.net/8-types-of-test-to-diagnose-rheumatoid-arthritis.html#IDComment85110022