Evaluation of disease outcome with demographic,clinical and laboratory features of childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus: Single center experience

Abstract

Aim: To report demographic, clinical and laboratory findings with clinical outcome in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus(cSLE)Material and Methods: Charts of all children with cSLE followed at pediatric rheumatology clinic of Gaziantep University between2000-2016 were reviewed. Demographic data, history, age at diagnosis, physical examination, laboratory investigations, diagnosticcriteria, follow-up duration and all therapeutic regimens were noted. The pediatric adaptation of the Systemic Lupus InternationalCollaborating Clinics American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (PedSDI) has been used to evaluate the disease outcome.Results: The study population was consisted of 39 patients, 31 girls and 8 boys who were under 18 years at the time of diagnosis.Female: male ratio was 4.7:1. The mean age at disease onset was 10.5±4.56 years, and the mean follow-up duration was 26.4±17.8 months. At the end of the follow-up period, fifteen patients (38.5%) had accrued damage (PedSDI≥1). We observed that renal,neuropsychiatric and musculoskeletal damage was the most frequent types of damage (38.5%). The damage score was higher inpatients having increased number of diagnostic criteria at presentation (p:0.001).Conclusion: Although our study showed less damage index than patients from other countries, it has been well known that thedamage accrual in SLE is higher in long term period, and mean follow-up period of our patients is lower than previous reports. Weconclude that damage mainly affects renal, neurophyschiatric and musculoskeletal systems, and increased number of diagnosticcriteria at presentation may cause much more damage.