Korean J Clin Pathol.  2001 Aug;21(4):287-291.

Does Human Parvovirus B19 have a Role in the Formation of the Anemia and the Disease Activity in Rheumatoid Arthritis?

• Chun LH
• Kim TY

Abstract

BACKGROUND
The pathogenic human parvovirus B19 replicates only in erythroid progenitor cells. The blood-group P antigen has been reported to be the cellular receptor of this virus. Human parvovirus B19 is known to be the etiologic agent of erythema infectiosum and causes a chronic anemia resulting from a persistent infection in immunocompromised patients. Recently, it has been re-ported to play a role in rheumatoid arthritis activity (RA). This study was aimed to determine whether human parvovirus B19 has a role to play in chronic anemia of RA which is the case in immunocompromised patients. We also investigated the association between the activity of the disease in RA and human parvovirus B19 infections.
METHODS
Of 107 patients that had RA, 49 patients had anemia and 58 patients did not. We used ESR and CRP results to estimate the degree of disease activity. Thirty-eight patients having RA had a normal ESR and 69 patients had a high ESR. Sixty patients had normal CRP and 47 patients had high CRP. Sera of patients were tested for the presence of anti-human parvovirus B19 (IgG and IgM) using ELISA (Biotrin, Co. Dublin, Ireland).
RESULTS
Of 107 patients who had RA, 79.4% (85/107) and 3.7% (4/107) were positive for IgG and IgM, respectively. There were no statistical differences between RA patients with anemia and those without anemia in the anti-human parvovirus B19 test (P>0.05). There were also no statistical differences between patients that had a normal or high ESR/CRP ratio (P>0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
Human parvovirus B19 did not play a role in the formation of the chronic anemia of RA which is different from the cases of immunocompromised patients. Furthermore, we found no association between disease activity in RA and human parvovirus B19 infections.

Keyword

Human parvovirus B19; Rheumatoid arthritis; Anemia; Disease activity

MeSH Terms

Anemia*
Arthritis, Rheumatoid*
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
Erythema Infectiosum
Erythroid Precursor Cells
Humans*
Immunocompromised Host
Immunoglobulin G
Immunoglobulin M
Parvovirus
Parvovirus B19, Human*
Immunoglobulin G
Immunoglobulin M