The recent article by Pisetsky et al 1 showing data derived from a comparison of different antinuclear antibody (ANA) assays in a cohort of patients with established systemic lupus erythematosus highlighted the critical issue of ANA detection. With great interest, we read the correspondence by van Hoovels et al 2 describing variation in ANA detection by automated indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) analysis and the following letter from Mahler and Auza on the strong need for ANA testing standardisation.3 Nowadays, the IIF on human epithelial cells (HEp-2) is considered the gold standard for ANA testing, but biological and non-biological issues limiting the IIF test are not currently adequately clarified in study literature.4 5 In fact, despite the fact that the IIF method on HEp-2 cells has existed for about 40 years, there are little data on this topic, and studies are mainly focused on selected patient groups, rather than samples from ‘real …

中文翻译：

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“现实生活”中的 ANA 测试

Pisetsky 等人最近发表的文章 1 显示了在一组已确诊的系统性红斑狼疮患者中比较不同抗核抗体 (ANA) 检测所得的数据，强调了 ANA 检测的关键问题。我们怀着极大的兴趣阅读了 van Hoovels 等人 2 的通信，该信件描述了自动间接免疫荧光 (IIF) 分析对 ANA 检测的变化，以及以下来自 Mahler 和 Auza 的关于对 ANA 测试标准化的强烈需求的信件。人类上皮细胞 (HEp-2) 被认为是 ANA 检测的金标准，但目前研究文献中并未充分阐明限制 IIF 检测的生物学和非生物学问题。4 5 事实上，尽管 IIF 方法对HEp-2细胞已经存在了大约40年，