Serologic studies on the association of rubella virus infection and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Rubella haemagglutination-inhibition (HAI) and virus-specific IgM antibody responses were investigated in 26 patients with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) and 52 age-and sex-matched controls. 30.8% of patients with JRA showed no serological evidence of a previous infection by rubella virus (RV). In addition, the Geometric Mean Titres (GMT) of rubella HAI antibody among patients with JRA were similar to those found among the control group. Furthermore, rubella-specific IgM responses could not be detected in any of the sera among JRA patients or control children, although they were present in the sera of all 12 (100%) patients with clinical rubella. These data, therefore, fail to suggest serological evidence for the association of RV infection with JRA.