Autoimmune Diseases: Recent Insights on Epidemiology, Pathogenesis, and Prevalence Rate

Autoimmune diseases (ADs) represent a complex condition for a variety of painful syndromes including malfunction of the body's immune system. It is characterized as the emergence of a body's defense system response against an unknown trigger, manifested as autoantibodies and T cell responses toward its own structures. In ADs, the inflammation becomes chronic, causing pain and severe damage to the tissues involved. Many autoimmune disorders have been strongly associated with genetic predisposition and/or environmental factors. Nearly 4% of the worldwide population is affected by more than 80 different types of ADs, which encompass both systemic and tissue-specific ailments including, systemic lupus erythematosus, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, autoimmune hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, etc.; with a higher prevalence rate in women in comparison to men. Till now, there is no specific cause associated with ADs reported; they only show patterns of remission and recurrence. They are difficult to diagnose because the specific disorders have numerous possible symptoms and individual symptoms vary. Treatment for autoimmune diseases generally focuses on reducing the immune system’s activity. This chapter explores numerous autoimmune disease, their epidemiology, and prevalence rate, concluding with a brief overview of pathogenesis as well as new treatment approaches.