Lupus

INTRODUCTION: Over 95% of healthy subjects develop anti-COVID IgG antibodies after receiving two doses of BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine. In comparison, 20%-30% of SLE patients do not seroconvert following 1-2 doses of COVID vaccines, potentially due to immunosuppression. The aim of this study was to assess immunogenicity and safety of BNT vaccine in SLE patients treated with Belimumab and especially the yield of a booster third dose in this population. METHODS: SLE patients treated with Belimumab in the Sheba Medical Center, Israel, were included in this study...

PURPOSE: To investigate whether low complement levels can predict worse outcomes in patients hospitalized with positive anti-phospholipid antibodies. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study. We obtained demographics, laboratory, and prognostic data of all consecutive patients hospitalized between 2007 and 2021, for whatever reason, with at least one positively abnormal anti-phospholipid antibody, who were also tested for complement levels (C3 or C4). We then compared the rates of long-term mortality, 1-year mortality, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary emboli between groups of low complement and normal complement levels...

Since the improvement in management and the reduction of mortality caused by the disease activity, infections have represented the main cause of morbidity and mortality in systemic lupus erythematosus patients. We aimed to determine the prevalence and identify risk factors of severe infections in systemic lupus erythematosus patients. We conducted a retrospective study on 93 Tunisian lupus patients followed between 2010 and 2019. The mean age of the disease was 33.63 ± 13.76 years. Fifty-two patients had 118 infections and 16% of the infections were serious...

Cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs) or strokes are part of the common thrombotic manifestations of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLEs) and Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Such neurological thrombotic events tend to occur in patients with SLE at a higher frequency when Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPLs) are present, and tend to involve the large cerebral vessels. The mechanism of stroke in SLE can be driven by complement deposition and neuroinflammation involving the blood-brain barrier although the traditional cardiovascular risk factors remain major contributing factors...

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a complex chronic autoimmune disease disproportionally afflicting women and, in particular, American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic women. These groups of women have significantly worse SLE-related health outcomes which are partially attributable to their exposure to marginalizing and interconnecting social issues like racism, sexism, economic inequality, and more. Although these groups of women have higher rates of SLE and though it is well known that they are at risk of exposure to marginalizing social phenomena, relatively little SLE literature explicitly links and addresses the relationship between marginalizing social issues and poor SLE-health outcomes among these women...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the predictors of the occurrence of severe autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) and its impact on damage accrual and mortality in SLE patients. METHODS: Factors associated with time to severe AIHA (hemoglobin level ≤7 g/dL) occurring from the onset of SLE symptoms were examined by Cox proportional hazards regressions. The association of severe AIHA with mortality was examined by logistic regression analyses while its impact on damage was by negative binomial regression...

INTRODUCTION: Previous fMRI studies revealed that the abnormal functional connectivity (FC) was related to cognitive impairment in patients with SLE. However, it remains unclear how the disease severity affects the functional topological organization of the whole-brain network in SLE patients without neuropsychiatric symptoms (non-NPSLE). OBJECTIVE: We aim to examine the impairment of the whole-brain functional network in SLE patients without neuropsychiatric symptoms (non-NPSLE), which may improve the understanding of neural mechanism in SLE...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate serum levels of soluble B-cell maturation antigen (sBCMA) in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematous (cSLE) patients with renal involvement, and to elucidate their association with clinical characteristics. METHODS: 116 cases of cSLE patients with renal involvement (84 females and 32 males; median age 11.6 (10.1, 12.9) years) hospitalized in Department of Pediatric Nephrology and Rheumatology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University and 31 healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled...

The association of dysregulated metabolism in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) pathogenesis has prompted investigations into metabolic rewiring and the involvement of mitochondrial metabolism as a driver of disease through NLRP3 inflammasome activation, disruption of mitochondrial DNA maintenance, and pro-inflammatory cytokine release. The use of Agilent Seahorse Technology to gain functional in situ metabolic insights of selected cell types from SLE patients has identified key parameters that are dysregulated during disease...

BACKGROUND: Lupus nephritis (LN) is the most common complication of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). This study aimed to explore biomarkers, mechanisms, and potential novel agents regarding LN through bioinformatic analysis. METHOD: Four expression profiles were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were acquired. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGGs) pathway enrichment analyses of DEGs were performed using the R software...

SIGNIFICANCE: Pulmonary involvement in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE), contributes to significant morbidity and mortality. Manifestations include chronic interstitial pneumonitis, pneumonia, pleuritis, alveolar hemorrhage, and shrinking lung syndrome. However, many patients can be asymptomatic from a respiratory standpoint and still have pulmonary function test (PFT) abnormalities. Our aim is to describe PFT abnormalities in patients with cSLE. METHODS: We completed a retrospective review of 42 patients with cSLE followed at our center...

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Lupus erythematosus is a complex autoimmune disease characterized by skin and/or systemic involvement. Among systemic disorders, half of the patients will experience non-specific digestive symptoms, usually due to drug medication or transitory infections. In rare cases, lupus enteritis can be observed, and its diagnosis may precede the disease and/or be associated with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Among the underlying mechanisms explaining the digestive damages observed in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and the intestinal barrier function (IBF), increased intestinal permeability, microbiota dysbiosis, and intestinal immune system dysregulations are described in numerous murine and human studies...

Pregnant patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) represent a high-risk group. The aim of this study is to describe the pregnancy outcomes among SLE patients who were followed prospectively at a conjoint high-risk pregnancy/rheumatology clinic from 2007 to 2021 and to identify predictors of adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. This study included 201 singleton pregnancies of 123 women with SLE. Their mean age was 27.16 ± 4.80 years, and their mean disease duration was 7.35 ± 5.46 years...

Retiform purpura-like lesions are rarely seen clinically and can be induced by cutaneous vascular wall damage or a lumen-occlusive disease arising from a broad range of triggers, including infection, drugs, emboli, cryoglobulinemia, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and autoimmune disease. Here, we present the case of a patient suffering from both systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), with retiform purpura as the first lesion and lacking other typical symptoms of SLE, such as photosensitivity, malar rash, ulceration of the mouth and nose, alopecia, and joint pain...

OBJECTIVES: Killer cell lectin-like receptor G 1 (KLRG1) , a transmembrane receptor with inhibitory capacity expressed in human immune cells, emerged as a novel susceptibility gene for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of KLRG1 in SLE patients compared to healthy controls (HC) on both NK and T cells and to evaluate its possible involvement in SLE pathogenesis. METHODS: Eighteen SLE patients and twelve healthy controls were enrolled...

OBJECTIVE: Curcumin is the active ingredient in the curry spice turmeric. It has anti-inflammatory properties due to the inhibition of transcription factors and inflammatory mediators such as nuclear factor- κβ (NF- κβ ), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2), lipoxygenase (LOX), tumor necrosis factoralpha (TNF-alpha), and interleukin-1 (IL-1) and 6 (IL-6). This review examines the literature regarding the efficacy of curcumin on systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the incidence rate and risk factors of bloodstream infection (BSI) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) exposed to medium to high doses of glucocorticoids. METHODS: This study included 1109 treatment episodes with prolonged (≥4 weeks) medium-to-high-dose glucocorticoids (≥15 mg/day prednisolone) in 612 patients with SLE for over 14 years. Clinical features regarding systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K), immunosuppressant use, and laboratory results were obtained from the electronic medical database...

OBJECTIVE: Lupus nephritis (LN) is often treated with high doses of glucocorticoids (GCs). The glucocorticoid toxicity index (GTI) was developed by expert consensus to quantify GC toxicity. To date, the GTI has not been shown to correlate with GC exposure in patients with LN. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients with biopsy-confirmed LN between 2006 and 2016. Cumulative GC exposure and GTI scores were determined via medical record review...

OBJECTIVE: Fatigue is one of the most common complaints and is a potentially modifiable issue in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Studies suggest that alcohol consumption has a protective effect against the development of SLE; however, an association between alcohol consumption and fatigue in patients with SLE has not been studied. Here, we assessed whether alcohol consumption was associated with fatigue using lupus patient-reported outcomes (LupusPRO). METHODS: This cross-sectional study, conducted between 2018 and 2019, included 534 patients (median age, 45 years; 87...