Clinical and immunological profile of SLE patients: Experience from a Chennai-based tertiary care centre (revisited)

Santhanam S,Tamilselvam Tn,Rajeswari S,Madeshwaran M

doi:10.15305/ijrci/v4i1/145

Santhanam S, Tamilselvam Tn + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.15305/ijrci/v4i1/145

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Abstract

Aim: To study the clinical and immunological profile of patients with newly detected systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) presented to a tertiary care centre. Methods: The study involved patients with newly detected SLE (fulfilling the 1997 revised ACR criteria for SLE), admitted in Madras Medical College and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital Chennai between January 2012 and December 2013. Results: Hundred patients with SLE were assessed for a period of two years, among them, 59% of the subjects belonged to the 3rd decade of life; 86% of the subjects were females and the remaining were males (M:F ratio 6:1). Fever (81%) was the commonest initial manifestation reported, followed by arthritis (61%), cutaneous (58%), neuropsychiatric (45%), and renal (44%) manifestations. In patients with lupus nephritis, class IV (38.63%) was common, followed by class III (22.72%) and class V (15.9%). ANA was positive in all patients (100%), anti-Smith (Sm) was found in 49% of the subjects, followed by anti-Ro (47%), anti-ds DNA (45), anti U1 RNP (42%) and reduced complements in 72%. Conclusion: SLE was more common among young females in their 3rd decade. In our study, patients had more of constitutional symptoms followed by joint and skin manifestations. High disease activity was noted in 84% of the patients. The incidence of neuropsychiatric and cardiovascular manifestations was more compared to other Indian studies.

Highlights

systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the typical autoimmune disease with varied clinical manifestations involving multiple organs
In view of these findings, the present study has focused on re-evaluating the clinical and immunological features of patients presenting with SLE to our centre
Around 81% of the subjects had fever and constitutional symptoms followed by arthritis, and cutaneous, neuropsychiatry and renal involvement (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

SLE is the typical autoimmune disease with varied clinical manifestations involving multiple organs. Inadequate data on clinicoepidemiological manifestations and lack of disease registries from India pose major barrier to further understand patient/disease characteristics and to build a comprehensive knowledge base on SLE. In contrast to the Chennai-based study conducted in 1983, our recent study has indicated an increase in neuropsychiatric manifestations of SLE.[1] In view of these findings, the present study has focused on re-evaluating the clinical and immunological features of patients presenting with SLE to our centre. Materials and methodology The cross-sectional study was conducted on 100 newly detected SLE patients admitted in Department of Rheumatology, Madras Medical College & Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai. The ethical committee approval and informed consent in patients own language were obtained before starting the study

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