Introduction: Autoimmune diseases are considered the third leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the industrialized countries. Autoimmune thyroid diseases (ATD) is associated with high prevalence of non-organ-specific autoantibodies, such as antinuclear antibodies (ANA), anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-ds DNA), anti-extractable-nuclear antigens (anti-ENAs), rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-cyclic-citrullinated peptides (anti-CCP) whose clinical significance is unknown.
We aimed to assess the prevalence of various non-organ-specific autoantibodies in patients with ATD , and to investigate the possible association between these autoantibodies and occurrence of rheumatic diseases and , if these autoantibodies could be considered as predictor markers for autoimmune rheumatic diseases in the future .
Subjects and methods: This study had two phases: phase one; in which 61 ATD patients free from rheumatic manifestations were assessed for the presence of these non-organ-specific autoantibodies against healthy 61 control group, followed by second phase longitudinal clinical follow up in which cases are monitored systematically to establish occurrence and progression of any rheumatic disease in association to these autoantibodies with its influences and prognosis.
Results: Regarding ATD patients, ANA, anti-dsDNA, Anti-ENA and RF, were present in a percentage of (50.8%), (18%), (21.3%) and (34.4%) respectively, with statistically significance difference (P