Autoimmune disease
Autoimmune diseases arise from an abnormal immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body (autoimmunity). This may be restricted to certain organs (e.g. in autoimmune thyroiditis) or involve a particular tissue in different places (e.g. Goodpasture's disease which may affect the basement membrane in both the lung and the kidney).
The treatment of autoimmune diseases is typically with immunosuppression—medication that decreases the immune response.
A large number of autoimmune diseases are recognized. A major understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of autoimmune diseases has been the application of genome wide association scans that have identified a striking degree of genetic sharing among the autoimmune diseases.
Definition
For a disease to be regarded as an autoimmune disease it needs to answer to Witebsky's postulates (first formulated by Ernst Witebsky and colleagues in 1957 and modified in 1994):
Direct evidence from transfer of disease-causing antibody or disease-causing T lymphocyte white blood cells