AB0027 ARE RHEUMATOID FACTORS AND ANTINUCLEAR ANTIBODIES ASSOCIATED WITH FRAILTY IN ELDERLY TUNISIAN POPULATION?

Abstract

Background: An emerging concept is the ‘frailty syndrome’, which may explain diversity in clinical outcomes in the elderly population. Objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate the possible association between antinuclear autoantibodies, different isotypes of Rheumatoid Factor and frailty in aged individuals. Methods: Using a validated set of frailty criteria (the SEGA tool), we conducted a cross sectional observational study to evaluate the prevalence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) (assessed by IFI) and different isotypes of Rheumatoid Factor (RF) (determined by ELISA) in 89 Tunisian individuals aged at least 65 years living in the community. The study population were categorized into three groups: severely frail (n=29), frail (n=31), and non frail (n=29) according to the validated and widely utilized frailty criteria (SEGA tool). Results: ANA were detected in 36 of the participants. No Significant difference was observed between the three groups. Immunofluorescence patterns observed were speckled in 34%, homogenous in 3.3%, and nucleolar in 3.3% of individuals. Nineteen of the severely frail patients had positive IgA RF compared to 11 from the Frail group and 6 only from the non-frail group (p Conclusion: Our study showed no significant difference in the frequency of ANA amongst nonfrail, prefrail, and frail aged individuals, whereas RF isotypes were found to be slightly correlated with several biological parameters and other features.