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'Just' back pain – or inflammatory autoimmune disease?

Everyone has back pain at some point or other. Between 20 and 30% of Europeans have chronic back pain, and in 5% of these cases the cause is inflammatory rheumatic disease, or spondyloarthritis (SpA). The immune system attacks cartilage and bone tissue, which is not only extremely painful, but can also cause significant damage to the spine and joints in the long term. Diagnosing the disease as early as possible is the best way to prevent or at least delay this damage. At present, however, early diagnosis is rarely achieved. Until changes in the spine can be detected by radiological means, the only way to diagnose the conditions is through the overall analysis of several, in themselves unspecific, clinical findings. The most helpful type of examination here is magnetic resonance tomography (MRT), which is too expensive for widespread use. Prof. Torsten Witte and his team in the Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the Hannover Medical School have therefore been looking for a marker of SpA that can be detected simply and cheaply. With success. They have identified antibodies to CD74 as relevant and specific markers, and validated their findings in a clinical trial. On the basis of this research, a licensing partner, AESKU.DIAGNOSTICS, has developed a CE-certified ELISA kit. In combination with existing tests, the kit enables SpA patients to be identified and treated at an early stage for the first time – without costly MRT examinations.

(Annual Review 2017)