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Background/aim: To investigate the frequency and clinical relevance of an extended autoantibody profile in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc)., Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, serum from 100 consecutive patients was subjected to indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) (HEp-20-10/primate liver mosaic) and Systemic Sclerosis Profile by EUROIMMUN to evaluate anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) and autoantibodies against 13 different autoantibodies in patients with SSc less than 3 years., Results: Ninety-three of 100 patients were positive for ANA by IIF. Fifty-three patients showed single positivity, 26 anti-topoisomerase antibodies (anti-Scl70 ab), 16 anticentromere antibodies (ACAs), six anti-RNA polymerase III antibodies (anti-RNAPIII ab), one anti-Ku antibody, one anti-PM/Scl100 antibody, two anti-PM/Scl75 antibodies, one anti-Ro52 antibody, whereas 32 patients had multiple autoantibody positivities. Among classic SSc-specific autoantibodies, anti-Scl70 and anti-RNAPIII abs showed the highest cooccurrence (n = 4). One patient was simultaneously positive for anti-RNAPIII ab and ACA, and one was positive for ACA and anti-Scl70 ab. The clinical features were not statistically different between single and multiple autoantibody-positivity for classic SSc-specific autoantibodies (ACA, anti-Scl70 ab, and anti-RNAPIII ab), except for digital ulcer in the multiantibody positive ACA group (p = .019)., Conclusion: Based on our results, coexpression of autoantibodies is not uncommon in SSc patients. Although autoantibodies specific to SSc in early disease show generally known clinical features, it remains to be investigated how the coexpression of autoantibodies will affect clinical presentation., (© 2023 The Authors. Immunity, Inflammation and Disease published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Objectives: The study aimed to identify the interactions among treatment protocols and oral ulcer activity related factors in patients with Behçet's syndrome (BS) using the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) algorithm., Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 979 patients with BS were included from16 centres in Turkey, Jordan, Brazil and the United Kingdom. In the CART algorithm, activities of oral ulcer (active vs. inactive), genital ulcer (active vs. inactive), cutaneous involvement (active vs. inactive), musculoskeletal involvement (active vs. inactive), gender (male vs. female), disease severity (mucocutaneous and musculoskeletal involvement vs. major organ involvement), smoking habits (current smoker vs. non-smoker), tooth brushing habits (irregular vs. regular), were input variables. The treatment protocols regarding immunosuppressive (IS) or non-IS medications were the target variable used to split from parent nodes to purer child nodes in the study., Results: In mucocutaneous and musculoskeletal involvement (n=538), the ratio of IS use was higher in patients with irregular toothbrushing (ITB) habits (27.1%) than in patients with regular toothbrushing (RTB) habits (14.2%) in oral ulcer activity. In major organ involvement (n=441), male patients with ITB habits were more likely treated with IS medications compared to those with RTB habits (91.6% vs. 77.6%, respectively)., Conclusions: Male BS patients on IS who have major organ involvement and oral ulcer activity with mucocutaneous and musculoskeletal involvement have irregular toothbrushing habits. Improved oral hygiene practices should be considered to be an integral part for implementing patient empowerment strategies for BS.

Background/aim: Evaluate the risk factors associated with pseudoaneurysms' development after the percutaneous interventional procedures performed by cardiology, interventional radiology (IR), and the other clinics., Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the ultrasound scans in the hospital database and picture archiving system (PACS) and enrolled a total of 132 patients during the period from October 2015 and December 2019. We evaluated the maximum diameter and volume of the pseudoaneurysm with the patient and procedure-related factors with univariate analysis., Results: We found that the patients with hypertension and without peripheric artery disease (PAD) had greater sac diameter (p = 0.010 and p = 0.016) and increased sac volume (p = 0.029 and p = 0.007). However, the sac volume increased in patients with diabetes than those without (p = 0.003). Both the increased maximum diameter and the volume of the pseudoaneurysm sac were in the patients in whom the procedure was applied in the common femoral artery (CFA) and with the venous intervention (p < 0.010 and p < 0.016; p = 0.004 and p = 0.001, respectively). We found that platelet count correlated negatively with the sac's maximum diameter and the volume (r = –0.383, p < 0.001 and r = –0.486, p < 0.001, respectively) duration of intervention correlated positively with the sac's maximum diameter and the volume (r = 0.205, p = 0.019 and r = 0.320, p < 0.001)., Conclusion: Our study reveals that prolonged procedure duration, simultaneous arterial and venous accesses, peripheral artery disease, thrombocytopenia, and puncture site are the aggressive risk factors of pseudoaneurysms size after angiographic procedures., Competing Interests: No conflict of interest was declared by the authors., (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of age on mucocutaneous activity by using moderation analysis in Behçet's syndrome (BS). In this cross-sectional study, 887 BS patients (female : male, 481:406; mean age, 38.4 ± 10.9 years) followed in 13 tertiary centers in Turkey were included. Mucocutaneous activity was evaluated by using the Mucocutaneous Index (MI) according to sex and disease course. Moderation analysis was performed to test the effect of age on mucocutaneous activity. A moderator variable is a third variable and affects the relationship between independent and outcome variables. Age was chosen as a potential moderator variable (interaction effect), MI score as the outcome variable and sex as an independent variable in the analysis. The moderation analysis tested the effects of age in three steps: whole BS patient group, patients without systemic involvement and those with systemic involvement. The moderation model was only significant in BS patients with systemic involvement (P = 0.0351), and a significant relationship was observed between female sex and MI score (P = 0.0156). In addition, the interaction plot showed that female patients had increased MI scores compared with male patients, especially in the 28-year-old age group (P = 0.0067). Moreover, major organ involvement was newly diagnosed in the majority of these young female BS patients. Our results suggest that the relationship between sex and mucocutaneous activity was moderated by age in the systemic involvement group. Also, increased mucocutaneous activity may be associated with new major organ involvement in young female BS patients with systemic involvement., (© 2020 Japanese Dermatological Association.)