I was wondering if those who are ANCA negative and have active vasculitis have such weak immune systems that their body is unable to create ANCA antibodies?
It may not be the ANCA antibodies that do the vasculitic damage, but some other mechanism which our ANCA AB's are attacking?
Theoritically, if someone is in remission with ANCA pos, their immune system maybe keeping the disease at bay.
If someone is ANCA neg, they wouldn't have an immune system able to attack the mechanism causing the vasculitis.
In this case, it makes sense for the ANCA neg person to try IV immunoglobulin injections.
[High dosage intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy in therapy-r... - PubMed - NCBI
Also, if we no longer have ANCA antibodies, we could still flare due to low immunoglobulins.
I'm just theorizing in an attempt to understand this nasty disease and welcome all opinions.
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