Patients
A total of 40 patients with MPO-AAV enrolled in this study were all
selected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University
from March 2017 to May 2020. Their AAV were diagnosed according to the
classification criteria for GPA and EGPA published by American College
of Rheumatology (ACR) in 1990 and the definition for MPA from 2012
Chapel Hill Consensus Conferences (CHCC)
nomenclature
of vasculitis[1, 24, 25]. All patients were test positive for p-ANCA
and MPO-ANCA by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) and enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively, and also with negative
detection for c-ANCA and PR3-ANCA as well as anti-nuclear antibody
(ANA). They were all diagnosed with MPO-AAV in active state for the
first time. Their blood samples and clinical documents including disease
activity assessment were taken before initiation of any
immunosuppressive treatment. The Version 3 of Birmingham Vasculitis
Activity Score (BVAS-V3) was employed to evaluate the vasculitis
activity. In addition, 40 healthy volunteers were included in this study
as controls. This study had been approved by the Ethics Committee of the
First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, and all subjects
have signed informed written consent before enrolled.