Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and their experience with vaccination against COVID-19: a descriptive and explanatory study.

Not available.

Usefulness of composite indices in the assessment of joint involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus patients: correlation with ultrasonographic score.

Specific indices are not available to evaluate systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) joint involvement; indeed, the application of indices validated for rheumatoid arthritis has been suggested. We evaluated the usefulness of organ specific composite indices, i.e. the Disease Activity Score on 28 joints (DAS28), Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI), Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI), and the ratio of swollen to tender joints (STR), to assess SLE joint activity by analyzing the correlation between these indices and ultrasonography (US) inflammatory status. We evaluated SLE patients with arthralgia and/or arthritis: the above-mentioned indices were calculated and the SLE Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2k) was applied to assess global disease activity. US of I-V metacarpophalangeal, I-V proximal interphalangeal, wrist, and knee bilateral was performed. Synovial effusion/hypertrophy and power Doppler findings were scored according to a semi-quantitative scale (0-3) to obtain an inflammatory total score (0-216). One hundred and six patients (M/F 7/99, median age 49.5 years (IQR 17.0), median disease duration 8.5 years (IQR 17.0)) were enrolled. We identified a positive correlation between US score and DAS28-CRP ( r = 0.3, p = 0.007), STR ( r = 0.42, p = 0.0005), SDAI ( r = 0.33, p = 0.02), CDAI ( r = 0.29, p = 0.03); US score reflected different levels of clinimetric joint activity. In conclusion, we suggest the ability of composite indices in detecting SLE joint inflammation and their possible real-life use.

Anti-carbamylated protein antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus patients with articular involvement.

Objective Several studies have evaluated the prevalence of rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-citrullinated proteins antibodies (ACPA) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients but no data are available on the anti-carbamylated proteins (anti-CarP), a new biomarker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We evaluated the anti-CarP prevalence in SLE patients with joint involvement and the associations with different phenotypes. Methods Seventy-eight SLE patients with joint involvement were enrolled (F/M 73/5; mean ± SD age 47.6 ± 11.2 years; mean ± SD disease duration 214.3 ± 115.6 months). As control groups, we evaluated SLE patients without joint manifestations ( N = 15), RA ( N = 78) and healthy individuals (HS, N = 98). Anti-CarP were assessed by home-made ELISA in all patients and controls, RF and ACPA in SLE patients with joint involvement (commercial ELISA kit). Results The prevalence of anti-CarP in SLE patients with joint involvement was similar to RA ( p = NS) and significantly higher compared with SLE without joint involvement and HS ( p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001, respectively). Four patients were positive for all three antibodies: seventy-five percent of these showed Jaccoud arthropathy. Fourty-five percent of ACPA-ve/RF-ve patients were anti-CarP + ve. Conclusions The evaluation of anti-CarP in SLE joint involvement demonstrated a prevalence of almost 50%, similar to RA and significantly higher than SLE without joint involvement and HS.