RT Book, Section A1 Kumar, Bharat A1 Aluri, Vijay A1 Tuetken, Rebecca A2 Wilbur, Jason K. A2 Graber, Mark A. A2 Ray, Brigit E. SR Print(0) ID 1151864667 T1 Rheumatology T2 Graber and Wilbur's Family Medicine Examination & Board Review, 4e YR 2018 FD 2018 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781259585333book LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1151864667 RD 2024/03/29 AB A few words on "rheumatology panels." Doing a "rheumatology panel" will never be the right answer. The diagnosis of rheumatologic disease is clinical with specific clinical criteria for each illness. While antinuclear antibody (ANA), rheumatoid factor (RF), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), and other tests may be useful in supporting a clinical diagnosis and assessing disease activity, these tests have poor specificity and may be positive in a variety of disease states. A positive ANA without a clinical diagnosis is meaningless. Likewise, RF helps to gauge prognosis (seropositive vs. seronegative) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but has very limited value as a diagnostic test. RF may also be positive in sarcoidosis, viral infections (especially hepatitis C), and autoimmune diseases such as granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener granulomatosis), as well as a variety of primary lung and liver diseases. ESR and CRP may support the clinical impression of inflammatory disease, but are again nonspecific.