Abstract

Background:Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic systemic autoimmune inflammatory disease with increased risk for mortality and cancers possibly because of the effects of systemic inflammation and immunodeficiency due to disease itself and/or cytotoxic agents for SLE management. Although there has been improvement in the prognosis of SLE over decades with the treatment advance including standardized treatment strategy for lupus nephritis and less cytotoxic agents, the improvement also is fixed nowadays.Objectives:In this study, we we are to investigate the mortality and cancer of SLE patients in a longitudinal SLE cohort and compare the morality ratio and incidence of cancer with general population over time.Methods:This study was conducted in Hanyang BAE lupus cohort during the period of 1998 to 2015. Mortality data and malignancy data were derived in connection with data from the Korean National Statistics Office and the Korea Central Incidence Database, respectively. The Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR) and Standardized Incidence Ratio (SIR) was estimated yearly by dividing the observed number deaths/cancers by the expected number of deaths/cancers of age- and sex- matched general population from matched year.Results:Mortality data were available in 1284 patients and total 71 deaths were observed. The most common cause of death was SLE itself (52.1%) followed by infection (18.3%), cerebrovascular disease (8.5%) and suicide (7.0%). The total age and sex adjusted SMR was 3.4 [95% CI (Confidential Interval) 2.6-4.1]. When we conduct subgroup analysis by age, the sex-adjusted SMR was significantly increased in young and middle aged adult patients: the SMR in patients younger than 20 was 12.2, but it was not significant due to the small number of young patients (observed death 3, expected death 0.3, 95% CI 0-26.0). The adjusted SMR in patients aged 20-39, aged 40-59 and aged over 60 were 9.8 (observed death 35, expected death 4.8, 95% CI 6.5-13.0), 3.7 (observed death 24, expected death 11.5, 95% CI 2.2-5.2), and 1.0 (observed death 9, expected death 10.3, 95% CI 0.3-1.6), respectively. Compared with alive patients, died patients had more serositis and more neurologic disorder according to American College of Rheumatology classification criteria for SLE despite the shorter observational period (5.6 years vs. 9.4 years).Malignancy data were available in 1,020 patients and 56 primary cancers were diagnosed. Solid tumor was developed in 51 patient and hematologic malignancy was developed in 5 patients (3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, 1 solitary plasmacytoma and 1 acute lymphoblastic leukemia). Thyroid cancer was the most common solid cancer (24 patients) followed by colorectal (5 patients), breast (4 patients), cervical cancer (4 patients) and hepatocellular carcinoma (3 patients). The total age and sex adjusted SIR was 1.1 (95% CI 0.8-1.4).Conclusion:Patients with SLE had higher risk of mortality than general population and the younger patients had the higher risk of mortality. The leading cause of death was SLE itself followed by infection and cerebrovascular disease. The risk for cancer in patient with SLE was similar with that of general population.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

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