antibodies concomitant with larger atherosclerotic lesions that contained abundant CD4 cells. OxLDL is the type of LDL that is more likely to undergo uptake by macrophages, which turn into the foam cells characterizing atherosclerotic lesions. Anti-oxLDL antibodies are present in patients with atherosclerosis, those with AIRDs, and healthy individuals. 8 In multivariate analyses, anti-oxLDL autoantibodies discriminated better between patients with peripheral vascular disease and control subjects than did any of the different lipoprotein analyses. There was also a tendency for higher autoantibody levels in patients with more extensive atherosclerosis. 9 The autoantibodies to ox-LDL were investigated in several AIRD groups, including patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), 10 systemic vasculitides, 8 and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). 10 The antibody levels were higher in those patient groups than in control subjects. There was a correlation between the total level of immunoglobulins and the level of antibodies against oxLDL, whereas no correlation was demonstrated between the levels of the total immunoglobulin and the levels of antibodies to unrelated antigens (Epstein-Barr virus and purified protein derivative of Myocobacterium tuberculosis). This finding suggests that elevated total immunoglobulin levels in SLE patients are selective for some specific antibodies, including autoantibodies against oxLDL. 10