Assessment of Serum Catestatin Levels in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients with Correlation to Disease Activity

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a widely recognized autoimmune disease that impacts the whole body.Aim: To compare the correlation between musculoskeletal ultrasonography and serum catastatin in rheumatoid arthritis activity.Patients and methods: This case-control investigation was performed on 90 randomly selected subjects above 18 years, divided into three groups: Group A included thirty cases with a confirmed diagnosis of severe rheumatoid arthritis (according to DAS28). Group B included 30 cases with confirmed diagnoses of mild and moderate RA (according to DAS28), and Group C included 30 patients free of rheumatoid arthritis (Control). All the cases who participated in this research were recruited from the outpatient clinics and inpatient units of the Rheumatology and rehabilitation Departments at Al Hussein and Bab El Sharia University Hospitals, which are affiliated with Al-Azhar University in Cairo.Results: There was a significant rise in catestatin in the group (A) compared to groups (B) and (C), as it increased significantly with the increased severity of the disease. The catestatin cutoff value is higher than 6.6, and the area under the ROC curve is equal to 0.869, which indicates that it is an excellent predictor for illness activity in patients with RA. The specificity, NPV, sensitivity, and PPV of catestatin were 90.0%, 61.4%,71.7%, & and 93.5%, respectively.Conclusion: Serum catestatin levels are related to musculoskeletal ultrasonography and other RA markers, making it a valuable biomarker for monitoring and assessing disease severity and treatment response