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Editor,—Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are highly conserved immunogenic intracellular molecules, and are induced by heat, inflammatory mediators, and physiological stress.1 The presence of antibodies to HSPs or heat shock cognate protein (HSC) has been reported in several autoimmune diseases.1 However, despite the prevalence of these antibodies in these autoimmune diseases, their significance is not fully understood.
In this report, we investigated antibodies to HSC71 specific antibody levels in sera from patients with Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada disease (VKH), a systemic disorder that affects various organs that contain melanocytes and is believed to be an autoimmune disease.2
CASE REPORT
Serum samples were obtained from eight patients with VKH, and from nine unaffected volunteers. All samples were obtained from VKH patients during the acute phase of the illness with severe uveitis and were taken before steroid administration. Mean ages were 43 and 40 for VKH and …