OBJECTIVETo study the significance of anti-soluble liver antigen/liver-pancreas (anti-SLA/LP) in diagnosing and typing autoimmune hepatitis (AIH).

METHODSSix thousand patients with abnormal liver functions, who had their autoantibodies checked by immunofluorescent assay (IFA) and immune blotting assay, were reviewed retrospectively.

RESULTSOf these 6000 patients with liver diseases, 84 were diagnosed AIH. Eighteen patients, 0.3% of the 6000, patients with abnormal liver functions, were SLA/LP antibody positive, of which 17 were with AIH-III [2/17 with AIH /primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) overlap syndrome], and 1 with chronic hepatitis B. Sensitivity and specificity of SLA/LP antibody in diagnosing AIH were 20.2% and 99.7% respectively, and the positive prediction value was 94.44%. The antinuclear antibody (ANA) titer in the AIH-III group was significantly lower than that of the AIH-I group (P < 0.05). The age of patients with anti-SLA/LP was higher (58.8% were over 50 years old) than those without this antibody (52.2% were 30 to 50 years old). There were no significant differences between the type III and type I AIH regarding gender, age, abnormal degree of liver function, PTA, IgG, liver cirrhosis rates and response to immunosuppressive therapy.

CONCLUSIONAnti-SLA/LP is highly specific for diagnosing AIH. Comparing the clinical data of type III and type I AIH, we did not find significant differences between the two groups.