Antiphospholipid Syndrome: Clinical and Therapeutic Aspects

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate patients with the antiphospholipid syndrome with particular attention to their initial clinical features, final diagnoses and the course of thrombotic events in association with therapy. The methodology applied was the following: retrospective analysis of 30 patient files (20 female, 10 male) with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Four types of therapy were evaluated for their efficacy to prevent thrombotic recurrences, aspirin 100 mg daily plus low-dose prednisone 10-15 mg daily, warfarin (with international normalized ratio 2 to 2.6), immunotherapy alone and no therapy. None of the patients was followed-up during pregnancy. The probability of thrombosis-free survival was estimated according to Kaplan-Meier method, while the statistical significance was tested by the log rank test. There were 21 patients with primary APS and 9 with secondary, 8 of whom had SLE and one patient who had primary Sjogren's syndrome. The age at onset and the disease duration did ...