Medically reviewed by Anita C. Chandrasekaran, MD An ANA blood test (antinuclear antibody test) is usually performed on a blood sample as part of the diagnostic process for certain autoimmune diseases ...

[1] During the last decades, the use of HEp-2 cells as substrates for IIF has allowed the identification of ANA patterns which are difficult or even impossible to appreciate on tissue sections ...

The MND ANA pattern is immunomorphologically characterized by the staining of 3–20 dots of variable size distributed throughout the cell nucleus, but sparing the nucleoli and the mitoses (Figure 2).