Laboratory Diagnosis and Monitoring in Chronic Systemic Autoimmune Diseases

The testing done in the diagnostic immunology laboratory contributes to the management of patients with systemic autoimmune diseases. In these diseases the interaction between environmental factors and a genetically dysreg-ulated immune system produces a continually variable level of disease activity. Improved techniques now allow the clinical scientist to assess the integrity of a patient’s immune system and to ascertain qualitative or quantita-tive disturbances in its activation and expression. Cellular and humoral immunity may become independently acti-vated or dysfunctional in certain disease processes, al-though the generation of amplifying proteins may result in the full clinical expression of immunity and autoimmune inflammation. Autoimmune diseases can, in part, be char-acterized according to the activation pattern of gene ex