PREVALENCE OF ANTIHUMAN PARVOVIRUS B19 IGG ANTIBODIES IN PATIENTS WITH REFRACTORY RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS AND POLYARTICULAR JUVENILE RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS

We investigated the prevalence of antihuman parvovirus B19 immunoglobu lin G (IgG) antibody in 108 Japanese patients with rheumatoid arthriti s (RA) and 11 patients with polyarticular juvenile rheumatoid arthriti s (JRA). Seropositivity of anti-B19 was significantly higher in patien ts with refractory RA (57.6%, 38/66) compared with patients with remit tent RA (19.0%, 8/42; P<0.001) or age-matched controls (24.3%, 19/78; P<0.001). Patients with refractory polyarticular JRA had a significant ly higher frequency of anti-B19 seropositivity (71.4%, 5/7) than age-m atched controls (8.3%, 5/60; P<0.001), while none of the remittent gro up was positive for the antibody (0/4).