Is serum anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide level useful in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis?

Background: To find out whether serum level of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptides (anti-CCP) could be useful in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: The study was performed against 1972 patients who visited Hanyang University Medical Center and were tested positive for anti-CCP.

Results: When test results were classified into 6 groups according to the anti-CCP level, diagnostic rates of RA in each group were distributed from 73.6% to 77.2%. The increase of serum level did not have any correlation with the diagnostic rate of RA.

Conclusions: The level of serum anti-CCP was not useful in the diagnosis of RA.