Renato Tozzoli, Maria Concetta Sorrentino, Nicola Bizzaro
In the last 15 years, the estimated prevalence of autoimmune diseases increased from about 4 to 9.4%. Autoimmune co-morbidity (i.e., the association between two or more autoimmune diseases in the same patient) is present in 0.4-0.5% of the worldwide population, more frequently in patients with multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune thyroid disease, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and vitiligo. The most common associations between autoimmune diseases define two clusters: the multiple autoimmune syndromes and overlap syndromes...
July 2013: Immunologic Research