Current Concepts and Future Directions for the Assessment of Autoantibodies to Cellular Antigens Referred to as Anti-Nuclear Antibodies

Table 5

Advantages and disadvantages of the HEp-2 ANA test.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Variety of different target autoantigens (>100)	Subjectivity
Some autoantibodies can be identified without confirmatory testing (i.e., anti-centromere)	Poorly standardized across manufacturers
Discovery tool for novel autoantibodies	Requires training and expertise
Useful for a spectrum autoimmune diseases (i.e., autoimmune hepatitis)	Low sensitivity for certain clinically important autoantibodies (i.e., Jo-1, ribosomal P, SS-A/Ro60, Ro52/TRIM21)
	Low specificity (high false positive rate)