Clinical and immunological pattern and outcome of Egyptian systemic lupus erythematosus patients: a single center experience:

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to describe the clinical and immunological pattern and disease outcome in Egyptian systemic lupus erythematosus patients.Patients and methodsThe medical records of 770 systemic lupus erythematosus patients who were followed from 2002–2015 at Kasr Alainy Hospital, Cairo University, were retrospectively reviewed.ResultsThere were 707 (91.8%) females. The mean age at disease onset was 22.1 ± 8.6 and the disease duration was 6.1 ± 4.5 years. The main clinical manifestations were mucocutaneous (90.8% with oral ulcers affecting 52.5%), arthritis (80.3%), nephritis (67.8%), hematologic involvement (64.9%), serositis (55.2%) and neuropsychiatric manifestations (44.3%). The frequencies of antinuclear antibodies were 94.3%, anti-dsDNA 74.8%, anti-Smith 11%, anticardiolipin antibodies 29.5% and lupus anticoagulant 19.8%. Infections, predominantly bacterial, affected 337 (43.8%) patients. Thirty-three (4.3%) patients died. The main causes of death were sepsis and disease activ...