Kakurina, NataljaKadisa, AndaLejnieks, AivarsMikazane, HelenaKozireva, SvetlanaMurovska, Modra2021-05-282021-05-282015Kakurina, N, Kadisa, A, Lejnieks, A, Mikazane, H, Kozireva, S & Murovska, M 2015, 'Use of exploratory factor analysis to ascertain the correlation between the activities of rheumatoid arthritis and infection by human parvovirus B19', Medicina (Lithuania), vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 18-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medici.2015.01.0041010-660Xhttps://dspace.rsu.lv/jspui/handle/123456789/4563Funding Information: This study was supported in part by the grant 09.1112 of the Latvian Council of Sciences and National Program in Biomedicine (2009–2013). Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Copyright: Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background and objective: We evaluated a possible correlation between the clinical activities of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and human parvovirus B19 (B19) infection using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Materials and methods: RA patients were organized into two groups: 100 patients in the main group and 97 in the RA(DAS28) group. Four subgroups were defined from the main group according to the presence or absence of certain infection-specific markers: group I comprised 43 patients who had IgG antibodies against B19; group II, 25 patients with active B19 infection (B19-specific IgM antibodies and/or plasma viremia); group III, 19 patients with latent/persistent B19 infection (virus-specific sequences in peripheral blood leukocytes' DNA with or without B19-specific IgG antibodies), and group IV, 13 patients without infection markers. The RA(DAS28) group was divided into four subgroups similarly to the main group: group I, 35; group II, 31; group III, 19; and group IV, 12 patients. Disease-specific clinical values in both groups were analyzed employing EFA, and the RA(DAS28) group was additionally assessed using Disease Activity Score (DAS)28. Results: RA activity was higher in patients who had markers of B19 infection. The highest activity of RA in both study groups was in patients with latent/persistent infection. In the RA(DAS28) group, according to DAS28, the highest activity of RA was in patients with active B19 infection. Conclusions: Using EFA and DAS28, a correlation between the clinical activity of RA and B19 infection was confirmed. These data suggest that EFA is applicable for medico-biological studies.71026086enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessExploratory factor analysisHuman parvovirus B19Rheumatoid arthritis3.2 Clinical medicine1.6 Biological sciences3.1 Basic medicine1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus databaseGeneral MedicineSDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/researchoutputtypes/contributiontojournal/article10.1016/j.medici.2015.01.004http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84951977658&partnerID=8YFLogxK