Antibodies to Nuclear Antigens in Patients Treated with Procainamide or Acetylprocainamide

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Abstract
ANTIBODIES to nuclear antigens develop in patients who have been treated with procainamide. The prevalence of antinuclear antibodies ranges from 50 to 80 per cent1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and increases with the duration of therapy. A syndrome like systemic lupus erythematosus develops in 29 per cent5 of patients receiving long-term procainamide. Procainamide lupus erythematosus is uniformly associated with the presence of antinuclear antibodies.8 This syndrome shares certain clinical and serologic features with "idiopathic" lupus erythematosus. Antibodies to single-stranded DNA (sDNA),9 , 21 ribonucleoprotein,10 and a histone-DNA complex11 develop in patients taking procainamide. In contrast, antibody to native DNA has infrequently been observed in serum samples . . .