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Rheumatology Advance Access published online on July 20, 2004
Rheumatology, doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keh307
Rheumatology © British Society for Rheumatology 2004; all rights reserved
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Received March 8, 2004
Accepted June 15, 2004

Concise report

Raised serum prolactin in rheumatoid arthritis: genuine or laboratory artefact?

S. Ram 1, D. Blumberg 2, P. Newton 2, N. R. Anderson 1, R. Gama 1*

1 Department of Clinical Chemistry, New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV10 0QP, UK
2 Department of Rheumatology, New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV10 0QP, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rousseau.gama{at}rwh-tr.nhs.uk.


  Abstract

Objectives. Serum prolactin concentrations have been reported as higher, similar or lower in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with control subjects. We investigated whether low biological activity macroprolactin (a prolactin antibody complex), which is detected variably in different prolactin immunoassays, could account for the discrepant total prolactin results reported in RA.

Methods. We compared serum total prolactin and free prolactin in 60 women with RA and 31 female controls.

Results. No subject had hyperprolactinaemia or macroprolactinaemia. Serum concentrations of total and free (monomeric) prolactin were higher (P<0.05) in women with RA [mean (s.d.), 225.6 (104.6) and 201.6 (95.4) mU/l respectively] compared with controls [175.0 (68.5) and 154.0 (60.9) mU/l respectively].

Conclusions. We report higher serum free prolactin concentrations in women with RA compared with control subjects. This result indicates that the higher serum total prolactin levels in patients with RA are the consequence of increased free prolactin concentrations and are not due to macroprolactin.

Keywords: Prolactin; Macroprolactin; Big prolactin; Big big prolactin; Rheumatoid arthritis.
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