Prevalence and clinical significance of anti-NOR90 antibodies in systemic sclerosis: Results from a multicentre cohort and systematic literature review.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the prevalence and clinical associations of anti-Nucleolar Organizer Region 90 (anti-NOR90) antibodies in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study of anti-NOR90-positive SSc patients from two tertiary hospitals, using the EUROLINE SSc profile kit and including only patients with repeated moderate or strong positivity. A comparative analysis was performed between patients with and without anti-NOR90 antibodies. Further, we performed a systematic literature search to summarise published evidence on anti-NOR90 antibodies in SSc.

RESULTS

We identified 21 anti-NOR90-positive patients, with a prevalence of 5.5% and 3.0% in each center. Fourteen patients (67%) were positive for at least one SSc-criteria autoantibody (anticentromere or anti-RNA polymerase III). Compared with 293 anti-NOR90-negative patients, anti-NOR90-positive cases had significantly less microvascular involvement, with fewer telangiectasias (p = 0.005) and no digital ulcers (p = 0.032), as well as lower frequencies of calcinosis (p = 0.018), gastrointestinal involvement (gastric, p = 0.024; intestinal, p = 0.029), and pulmonary arterial hypertension (p = 0.012). No significant differences were observed in other disease domains. In multivariable analysis, anti-NOR90 positivity remained independently associated with a lower prevalence of intestinal involvement (OR 0.332, 95% CI 0.119 to 0.931; p = 0.036) and composite microvascular involvement, defined as telangiectasias and/or digital ulcers (OR 0.285, 95% CI 0.113 to 0.719; p = 0.008). The systematic literature review confirmed that anti-NOR90 antibodies are uncommon (2.41%) and associated with a predominantly female phenotype, lower frequencies of diffuse cutaneous SSc, digital ulcers, arthritis, myopathy, and intestinal involvement, as well as frequent coexistence with other SSc-related autoantibodies.

CONCLUSION

Anti-NOR90 antibodies identify an infrequent, predominantly female subset of patients that appears to be associated with milder microvascular disease and lower frequency of intestinal symptoms.