Alpha1-Antitrypsin Polymorphism in Fibromyalgia Syndrome Patients from the Asturias Province in Northern Spain: A Significantly Higher Prevalence of the PI*Z Deficiency Allele in Patients Than in the General Population

Abstract

Background: Recent evidence suggests that the alpha1-antitrypsin [AT] gene may play a role in the pathogenesis of the fibromyalgia syndrome [FMS]. The objective of the present study is to compare the AT gene frequency between FMS patients and the general population [GP] from the central region of the Asturias Province in Northern Spain.Method: The AT proteinase inhibitor phenotypes were characterized by isoelectric focusing on serum from a cohort of 250 individual FMS subjects, who fulfilled the American College of Rheumatology criteria for FMS, and on serum from a control cohort of 1,111 GP subjects. The FMS subjects [238 females and 12 males] were enlisted from an outpatient hospital clinic setting. The mean age of the FMS cohort was of 49.02 years. The GP control cohort [45 percent males and 55 percent females] was enrolled using an epidemiological technique of simple random sampling in the general population from the same region of Asturias. The GP sample size was 1,111, the mean age was of 46.2 years...