Neuropsychological assessment in mixed connective tissue disease: comparison with systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

In the majority of MCTD patients, CF were not impaired and severe impairment was unusual. Cognitive functioning was most disturbed in NP-SLE. The cognitive deficits observed in connective tissue diseases can be connected with nervous system involvement.

Auto-antigenic Properties of the Spliceosome as a Molecular Tool for Diagnosing Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Mixed Connective Tissue Disease Patients

“…The recognition of MCTD as a separate disorder from SLE has remained debatable since its initial description in 1972 (Sharp et al, 1972;Aringer et al, 2005;Nowicka-Sauer et al, 2012). Nevertheless, the clinical relevance of the MCTD concept to identify individuals with different organ malfunction from patients that fulfill the SLE classification criteria has been documented (Badui et al, 1984;Smolen and Steiner, 1998;Venables, 2006;Watanabe et al, 2012;Gunnarsson et al, 2013;Bertsias et al, 2013).…”

“…syndromes showing overlapping characteristics with other autoimmune disorders (Rebora and Parodi, 1990;Aringer et al, 2005;Swanton and Isenberg, 2005;Nowicka-Sauer et al, 2012). Sharp et al (1972) initially described MCTD as a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by elevated antibodies directed to subunits of the U1 small nuclear ribonucloprotein particle (snRNP).…”

“…Though MCTD was described as a separate disorder (Sharp et al, 1972), there is much controversy regarding its independent nature because of the great number of overlapping auto-antigens and clinical manifestations shared with SLE (Rebora and Parodi, 1990;Swanton and Isenberg, 2005;Nowicka-Sauer et al, 2012). Nevertheless, there are auto-antigens and clinical symptoms that are more frequently exhibited in one disease group than the other.…”

“…Despite its description as an independent autoimmune disease (Sharp et al, 1972), the classification of MCTD as distinct from SLE remains controversial because of the high number of common clinical features between SLE and MCTD patients (López-Longo et al, 1994;Aringer et al, 2005;Swanton et al, 2005;Venables, 2006;von Bierbrauer et al, 2008;Nowicka-Sauer et al, 2012).…”

“…Since then, the concept of MCTD as a distinct clinical entity has been challenged due to the number of common characteristics share mainly with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) (Aringer et al, 2005;Nowicka-Sauer et al, 2012) and less often with other autoimmune syndromes such as Polymyositis (PM), Systemic Sclerosis (SS) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) (Mukerji and Hardin, 1993;Egner, 2000;Haustein, 2005).…”