Clinical analysis of 48 cases of older-onset systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

Objective To assess the clinical feature of older-onset systemic lupus erythematosus.Methods A retrospective study was carried out.Clinical and laboratory findings were collected from 48 patients with older-onset (＞ or =50 years) SLE as well as 424 patients with younger-onset (＜ 50 years) SLE hospitalized in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2008 to January 2011.Results Among the 472 hospitalized patients with SLE,the ratio of male to female was 1 ∶ 8.08,and older-onset SLE accounted for 10.17％.No significant difference was observed in the incidence of fever,arthritis,decrease in hemoglobin level,increase in erythrocyte sedimentation rate and reduction in complement C4 level,or the positivity rate of anti-ribonucleoprotein (RNP) or anti-Sm autoantibodies (all P ＞ 0.05) between the older-onset and younger-onset SLE patients.The patients with older-onset SLE showed a statistically higher incidence of myalgia,myasthenia,serositis,heart damage and lung damage,decrease in white blood cell count and platelet count,but a significantly lower incidence of butterfly rash,alopecia,renal damage,Raynaud's phenomenon,photosensitivity,decrease in complement C3 level,as well as the positivity rate of anti-dsDNA and anti-nucleosome antibodies in comparison with those with youngeronset SLE (all P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions It is likely that older-onset SLE has mild and atypical clinical manifestations,with a relatively low positivity rate of specific immunological indices.Hence,clinicians should pay more attention to older-onset SLE so as to avoid the misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis of it.