Table 4.
Association of demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics and MBL2 genotype expression groups: oligoarthritis
| Characteristic | MBL genotype expression groups | Pa | Pb | ||
| High (n = 77) | Medium (n = 48) | Low (n = 26) | |||
| Demographic variables | |||||
| Males | 22 (29%) | 10 (21%) | 8 (31%) | NS | NS |
| Age (years) at onset | 6.6 (3.4 to 10.6) | 8.7 (2.6 to 12.1) | 6.6 (2.9 to 12.6) | NS | NS |
| Disease duration (years) at follow up | 14.5 (13.6 to 15.9) | 15.1 (13.2 to 16.1) | 15.3 (14.1 to 16.4) | NS | NS |
| Clinical variables | NS | NS | |||
| Cumulative affected joints | 3 (2 to 6) | 4 (2 to 6) | 2 (2 to 4) | NS | NS |
| Actively involved joints | 0 (0 to 1) | 0 (0 to 1) | 0 (0 to 0) | NS | NS |
| Affected joints | 1 (0 to 3) | 1 (0 to 2) | 1 (0 to 3) | NS | NS |
| Arthritis severity index | 2 (0 to 6) | 2 (0 to 5) | 1.5 (0 to 5) | NS | NS |
| Physician global assessment | 1 (1 to 2) | 1 (1 to 2) | 1 (1 to 2) | NS | NS |
| Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire score | 0.0 (0.0 to 0.3) | 0.0 (0.0 to 0.1) | 0.0 (0.0 to 0.4) | NS | NS |
| Patients with uveitis | 12 (16%) | 16 (33%) | 6 (23%) | NS | NS |
| Remission status at follow up | 0.02 | 0.01 | |||
| Current remission | 43 (56%) | 26 (54%) | 21 (81%) | ||
| Active, but previous remission | 27 (35%) | 13 (27%) | 1 (4%) | ||
| Continuously active | 7 (9%) | 9 (19%) | 4 (15%) | ||
| Radiographic erosions grade III to IV | 11 (14%) | 8 (17%) | 2 (8%) | NS | NS |
| Laboratory variables | NS | NS | |||
| Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (mm/hour) | 6 (4 to 11) | 8 (5 to 13) | 5 (4 to 11) | NS | NS |
| C-reactive protein (mg/l) | 5 (1 to 5) | 5 (3 to 6) | 5 (5 to 9) | <0.01 | 0.01 |
| Antinuclear antibody positivity | 33 (43%) | 18 (38%) | 11 (42%) | NS | NS |
| IgM-rheumatoid factor positivity | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | - |
Included in this analysis are 151 patients with juvenile oligoarthritis. Values are expressed as number (%) or, for continuous variables, as median (interquartile range). aComparison of the high, medium and low genotype expression groups by means of the two-sided Fisher's exact test and Kruskal-Wallis test. bComparison of the high and medium genotype group versus the low genotype expression group by means of the two-sided Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney U-test. NS, not significant.