Clinical utility of the anti-CCP assay in patients with rheumatic diseases

Objectives: To determine the frequency of antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCP) in a group of patients with a diversity of rheumatic diseases. Methods: 249 consecutive sera from an arthritis clinic sent for rheumatology testing were selected for testing with the anti-CCP2 assays and for the presence of rheumatoid factor (RF). Patient charts were reviewed for demographic information, clinical diagnosis, radiographic information, and other laboratory data. Results: The sensitivity and specificity of anti-CCP reactivity for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were 66.0% and 90.4%, respectively. This compared with the sensitivity and specificity of RF for RA at 71.6% and 80.3%. Furthermore, 10/29 (34%) RF-patients with RA demonstrated reactivity to CCP. The presence of either anti-CCP or RF increased testing sensitivity for diagnosis of RA to 81.4%; the presence of both RF and anti-CCP demonstrated a testing specificity similar to that of anti-CCP reactivity alone for the diagnosis of RA (91.1%). Conclusions: The detection of anti-CCP is useful for the diagnosis of RA, in fact even more so than RF, because of its higher specificity.