Negative conversion of antimitochondrial antibody in primary biliary cirrhosis: A case of autoimmune cholangitis

Autoimmune cholangitis is a clinical constellation of chronic cholestasis, histological changes of chronic nonsuppurative cholangitis and the presence of autoantibodies other than antimitochondrial antibody (AMA). It is uncer tain whether this entity is definitely different from AMA positive primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), though it shows some differences. We report a case of autoimmune cholangitis in a 59-year-old woman, who had been previously diagnosed as AMA-positive PBC associated with rheumatoid arthritis, has bee n converted to an AMA-negative and anticentromere antibody-positive PBC dur ing follow-up. The response to ursodeoxycholic acid treatment is poor excep t within the first few months, but prednisolone was dropping the biochemica l laboratory data.