Abstract

Background:Pulmonary involvement is common in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) patients with varying degrees of parenchymal, vascular, and pleural compromise. In GLADEL, pulmonary involvement was reported in 28.4% of the cohort, but its occurrence ranges between 30-90% due to diversity in populations and the methods used to define it.Objectives:To describe the immune-serological profile of a Colombian cohort of SLE patients and to establish its association with pulmonary manifestations.Methods:Retrospective analysis of observational data from the follow-up of a cohort of adult patients with SLE. We included 559 patients that fulfilled the SLICC 2012 classification criteria with at least 6 months of disease history and being treated in a rheumatology specialized medical center between 2015 and 2018. The immuno-serological profile was characterized, and pulmonary involvement was monitored for 1 year. Diagnosis of pulmonary involvement was performed with the rheumatologist report in the clinical chart. Prevalence of pulmonary manifestations and immune-serological profile was determined, and logistic regression was performed afterward adjusted by age, sex, and level of education to establish the association between pulmonary manifestations and a positive auto-antibodies profile.Results:The median age of the cohort was 45 years, 96.5% were female. Pulmonary involvement was documented in 113 patients (20.5%) at the beginning of the study. Their frequency was: pleuritis (14.3%), lupus pneumonitis (3.6%), pulmonary hypertension (3.2%), interstitial lung disease (ILD) (2.3%), pulmonary embolism (2.3%), lung fibrosis (2.14%), alveolar hemorrhage (1.4%), shrinking lung (0.2%). At 1 year of follow up. there were no statistically significant differences in the frequency of pulmonary manifestations. As for the immune-serological profile, there were positive ANA in 92%, anti-dsDNA in 53.1%, anti-B2GP IgM 15.2%, anti- B2GP IgG in 17.2%, and ENA in 97.2%; as for the ENA 41.7% had positive anti-RNP, 40.2% anti-Ro, 36.4% anti-SM and 16.5% anti-La. Low complement levels was characterized as follows: C3 53.1% and C4 29.2%. In the logistic regression adjusted by age, sex and level of education, there was an association between anti-SM and pulmonary manifestations with an adjusted OR of 1.85; 95% CI 1.13-3.01.Conclusion:An association between anti-SM positivity and pleuro-pulmonary manifestations was found. In other cohorts with a greater size, anti-La and anti-RNP have been associated with pulmonary involvement (OR 2.51; 95% CI 1.39-4.57 and OR 1.32; 95% CI 1-1.75 respectively). Anti-RNP positivity has been associated in particular with ILD, pulmonary hypertension and shrinking lung. Although these manifestations prevalence was similar in our cohort, an association with this antibody was not found (OR 1.01, 95% CI: 0.2-4.9). This could be explained by the smaller sample size. As for anti-La positivity, its prevalence in our cohort was less than what was found in the GLADEL cohort (16.5% vs 24.3% respectively). It is possible that this could explain the poor association between anti-La positivity with the presence of pulmonary manifestations in our study compared with those of the GLADEL cohort. There are data that indicates that anti-SM and anti-RNP simultaneous positivity is related mainly to pleuritis OR 1.98 (95% CI: 1.31-3); and this kind of involvement was found to be more frequent in our study. Our results suggest an association between positive anti-SM and pulmonary manifestations in Colombian patients with SLE, pleuritis in particular.

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