Autoimmune disease can be either organ-specific illnesses (eg, thyroid disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, myasthenia gravis) or systemic illnesses (eg, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)). The cause of autoimmune damage may be mainly due to either autoantibodies or autoimmune T lymphocytes. Nearly all autoimmune diseases are associated with circulating autoantibodies, which may also be found associated with non-related illnesses and in healthy individuals.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original article at https://patient.info/doctor/plasma-autoantibodies-disease-associations