| Research Abstract |
The present study revealed that autoimmune pancreatitis is characterized by elderly male preponderance and obstructive jaundics as an initial symptome. Sometimed it is difficult to differentiate this disease from pancreatic cancer clinically, but serum IgG4 measurement is useful tool for differentiation. Significant changes of pancreatigram in follow-up study showed the diversity of clinical features of this disease. We found low frequency of authentic autoantibodies, such as SS-A, SS-B and anti-mitochondrial antibody in this disease. We found anti-alfa-fodrin antibody in sera of autoimmune pancreatitis patients with sclerosing cholangitis, suggesting that this antibody is associated the formation of such an extra-pancreatic lesion.
Auotimmune pancreatitis is characterized by co-occurrence of various exta-pancreatic lesions._The present study showed hilar lesions by gallium-67 scintigrphy and retroperitoneal fibrosis, suggesting that this disease is regarded as systemic disease, such as multifocal fibrosclerosis. The autoimmune pancreatitis is significantly associated with HLA DRB1*0405-DQB1*0401 haplotype, which may present specific antigen peptide to T cells, resulting in the initiation of autoi, mmune response.
The present study revealed that sera of the patient with this disease react specifically to 25 kDa band, which was later confirmed as superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2). In many autoimmune diseases, autoantibodies react to SOD2, suggesting the candidate of target antigen. However, recombinant SOD2 protein could not react with patient sera. We should perform further study to confirm whether glucoconjugate portion of this protein is antigen determinant.
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