False-positive acetylcholine receptor antibody results in patients without myasthenia gravis

Paul Maddison, Girija Sadalage, Philip Alexander Ambrose, Saiju Jacob, Angela Vincent

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Acetylcholine receptor antibodies are very specific for myasthenia. During a large prospective cohort study of myasthenia, we encountered five patients, positive for acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibodies by radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIA), whose clinical course revealed diagnoses other than myasthenia. Two patients had transiently raised AChR antibodies associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome. Antibodies to clustered AChRs, in a live cell-based assay, were negative in all five patients, suggesting that results from the RIAs were false-positives. It is possible that the AChR antibodies detected by RIA in these cases were non-pathogenic, and directed to intracellular epitopes of the AChR.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)69-72
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Neuroimmunology
Volume332
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jul 2019

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Antibody Specificity
  • Autoantibodies/blood
  • Autoantigens/immunology
  • Diagnostic Errors
  • Epitopes/immunology
  • False Positive Reactions
  • Female
  • Guillain-Barre Syndrome/blood
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Myasthenia Gravis/blood
  • Prospective Studies
  • Radioimmunoprecipitation Assay
  • Receptors, Nicotinic/immunology
  • Symptom Assessment
  • Young Adult

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