Intestinal Nonrotation, Imaging Findings in the Malrotation Spectrum: Case Report

Intestinal nonrotation is a rare embryonic developmental anomaly with a reported incidence of up to 0.5% in autopsies. Given the asymptomatic course, the diagnosis may be late, so it becomes an incidental finding. This study presents the most common imaging characteristics to familiarize readers with this pathology. We describe the case of a 73-year-old patient who consulted for pain in the right inguinal region associated with the sensation of a mass. There were no significant findings on physical examination. An abdominal tomography with contrast was requested as a study method, identifying a reversal of the superior mesenteric artery/superior mesenteric vein relationship with the cecum, appendix, and ileocecal valve in the left flank and mesogastrium. A displacement of thin intestinal loops towards the right hemiabdomen was also noted.

La no rotación intestinal es una anomalía del desarrollo embrionario poco frecuente con una incidencia reportada de hasta el 0,5 % en autopsias. El diagnóstico puede ser tardío dado el curso asintomático, por lo que se convierte en un hallazgo incidental. El objetivo de este estudio es dar a conocer las características por imagen más comunes para familiarizar a los lectores con esta patología. Se presenta el caso de un paciente de 73 años que consultó por dolor en la región inguinal derecha asociado a sensación de masa. En el examen físico no hubo hallazgos significativos. Se solicitó una tomografía abdominal con contraste como método de estudio y se identificó una inversión de la relación entre la arteria y vena mesentérica superior con la presencia de ciego, apéndice y válvula ileocecal en el flanco izquierdo y mesogastrio. Adicionalmente, se observó un desplazamiento de asas intestinales delgadas hacia el hemiabdomen derecho.

The Questionnaire of Intention to Help in VAW Cases (QIHVC): Development and preliminary results.

Introduction: Violence against women (VAW) is a worldwide social and health problem of epidemic proportions. This violence is preventable, and bystander programs are one of the possible preventative strategies. The main purpose of this research was to develop a tool that, by applying a contrastive methodology for its application in different forms of violence (forms of gender-based violence, such as intimate partner VAW, sexual harassment at work, and street harassment, and common violence, such as a robbery), would allow measuring the probability of occurrence of bystander response in the face of these types of violence with good evidence of content validity. Method: Firstly (Study 1), an initial version of a measure tool, the Questionnaire of Intention to Help in VAW Cases (QIHVC), was developed; secondly (Study 2), a Delphi (modified) study was carried out to obtain valid, content-based evidence; and finally (Study 3), a pilot study was carried out to evaluate the appropriate functioning of the QIHVC and, if required, to make any necessary adjustments. Results and discussion: The main result is the development of a set of case scenarios and a questionnaire related to its content which constitutes the QIHVC and, in its initial approximation, seems to constitute an adequate and sensible tool to capture the differences between the characterizations of common violence and VAW and in the possible response of bystanders in the face of such violence.

Personal Traits of the People Who Help: The Case of Bystanders to Violence against Women.

Within the context of emergency situations, the terms witness or bystander are used to refer to individuals involved in oppressive incidents who are neither the victim nor the perpetrator. Among the different types of emergency situations, our study focuses on violence against women (VAW). In keeping with current efforts in the scientific literature on bystander intervention and the evidence currently available, the main focus of this study is to analyze some personal factors that reflect the characteristics or experiences of bystanders and that could have a bearing on their predisposition to help victims of VAW (i.e., empathy, a just world belief system, and expectations of self-efficacy) and later analyze the possible relationship between these personal characteristics and gender or previous experience as a VAW bystander. An opportunity sample of 546 Spanish participants (73.4% women and 26.6% men) between 18 and 56 years of age took part in this study and fill out a sociodemographic data sheet, a questionnaire to evaluate the experience as violence witness designed ad hoc, and the Characteristics of People who Help Questionnaire scale (CPHQ). The results obtained indicate that CPHQ could constitute an adequate measure for the three dimensions analyzed. Female participants are significantly more empathetic than males, but in the case of a just world belief and expectations of self-efficacy the results showed no gender-related differences. Additionally, only a just world belief was clearly influenced by having been a bystander to some form of VAW. In conclusion, this study contributes a proposal for an evaluating instrument featuring three relevant personal characteristics in the development of helping behaviors, presenting some results of interest regarding empathy, a just world belief, and expectations of self-efficacy and their relationship with gender or previous experiences as VAW bystanders. These results obtained suggest an initial path toward future research in the development of interventions with bystander participation in our environment.

Bystanders of intimate partner violence against women and their willingness to intervene: An analysis of secondary data in Spain (2005-2020).

Recent decades have seen a growing acknowledgement of violence against women (VAW) as a serious social and public health problem of epidemic proportions. The prevention of VAW and intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) has become a priority within this context, and includes various prevention strategies such as social participation and helping behaviors. In different countries, conducting research on help-seeking behavior and bystander intervention in cases of VAW is a common practice, but addressing these issues is much less common in Spain. In this context, the objective of this study is to provide a preliminary estimation of the volume of bystanders in cases of IPVAW in Spain between 2005 and 2020 (since the entry into force of Organic Law 1/2004), their willingness to intervene and, in the case of intervention, the type of helping behavior (real or hypothetical) preferred, using the sources (secondary data) available (specifically, survey data, as the surveys of social perception of gender violence and the 2014 and 2019 macro-surveys, and also administrative data, as the database of reports filed). The data analyzed allow us to determine that, in fact, in the cases of IPVAW there are usually persons within the victim's inner circle who are firsthand witnesses or have been informed by the victim of the existence of this type of violence, but, although the bystanders generally claim they would engage in an active and supportive response, this is in fact not always the case. These results underscore the need to develop intervention programs aimed at IPVAW bystanders to improve their reaction and contribute to the development of helpful and efficient active responses.

Monkeypox virus genome sequence from an imported human case in Colombia. / Secuencia genómica del virus de la viruela símica de un caso importado en Colombia

INTRODUCTION: Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus with a genome of approximately 197.209 bp. The current classification divides MPXV into three clades: Clade I (Central African or Congo Basin clade) and clades IIa and IIb (West African clades). OBJECTIVE: To report the complete genome and phylogenetic analysis of a human monkeypox case detected in Colombia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Exudate from vesicular lesions was obtained from a male patient with recent travel history to Spain. A direct genomic approach was implemented in which total DNA from the sample was purified through a column-based method, followed by sequencing on the Nanopore GridION. Reads were aligned against the MPXV reference genome using minimap2 v.2.24 and phylogenetic inference was performed using maximum likelihood estimation. RESULTS: A total of 11.951 reads mapped directly to a reference genome with 96.8% of coverage (190.898 bp). CONCLUSION: Phylogenetic analysis of the MPXV circulating in Colombia demonstrated its close relationship to clade IIb responsible for the multi-country outbreak in 2022.

Introducción. El virus de la viruela del mono (MPXV) está compuesto por un genoma de ADN bicatenario, aproximadamente, de 197.209 pb. La clasificación actual agrupa el MPXV en tres clados: clado I (de la cuenca del Congo en África central), y clados IIa y IIb (de África occidental). Objetivo. Reportar el genoma completo y el análisis filogenético de un caso humano de viruela símica detectado en Colombia. Materiales y métodos. Se obtuvo exudado de lesiones vesiculares de un paciente varón con el antecedente de un viaje reciente a España. Se implementó un enfoque directo, en el cual se purificó el ADN total de la muestra mediante un método basado en columnas, seguido de la secuenciación directa en la plataforma Nanopore GridION. Las lecturas se alinearon con el genoma de referencia del MPXV, utilizando minimap2, v.2.24, y la inferencia filogenética fue realizada mediante la estimación por máxima verosimilitud. Resultados. Un total de 11.951 lecturas se alinearon directamente con el genoma de referencia con una cobertura del 96,8 % (190.898 pb). Conclusión. El análisis filogenético del MPXV circulante en Colombia demostró su estrecha relación con el clado de África occidental (clado IIb) responsable del brote en múltiples países en el 2022.

Stereotypes About Battered Women and Victim's Self-Defense: Legal Implications.

Recent research on the practices of justice operators with women victims of intimate partner violence has evidenced the existence of gender stereotypes and gender-blind practices in the Spanish legal system (Albertín et al., 2020; García Jiménez et al., 2019, 2020), as well as the graves consequences that such practices imply for these women. In this context, the present study explored the existence of a battered woman stereotype and its variation when the victim defends herself from the abuser. An opportunity sample of 505 undergraduates of Law, Psychology and other studies from two Spanish universities assessed some personality characteristics of a woman after watching a 1-minute-long silent video. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three observation conditions ("control", "victim" or "self-defense victim"), which differed in the previous information given about the target woman. The Principal Components Analysis reduced the information from the questionnaire to three dimensions: "brittleness" (α = .91), "positive" (α = .786), and "hostile" (α = .809). The MANOVA confirmed the battered woman stereotype and its modification when the victim reacts against the abuser in self-defense: in this case the attribution of brittleness decreases and the attribution of hostility increases. The type of academic training showed significant effects on the stereotype, this being more negative among Law students than among Psychology ones. Law students perceive the target woman in the "victim" condition more hostile and manipulator. As for the "self-defense" condition, Law students attribute less brittleness to the victim, and perceive her more manipulator and dangerous. The effect of the observer's gender on the stereotype is consistent with the previous literature. Implications for professional training and judicial practices are discussed.

Heterogeneous weathering of polypropylene in the marine environment.

Polypropylene (PP) inkjet cartridges spilled during January 2014 in the northwest Atlantic Ocean from a container ship and subsequently retrieved from beaches around Europe and the Azores along with a matching reference cartridge that had not been exposed to the environment were physically and chemically characterized. Compared with the reference, the cartridges retrieved from the marine environment exhibited considerable cracking-fracturing, discoloration, surface roughness, loss of gloss and staining. Infrared analysis revealed that weathering was highly heterogeneous, with the carbonyl index ranging from <0.1 to >0.9 over areas of sub-mm-dimensions. The high degree of weathering was partly attributed to the presence, quality, and distribution of the titanium dioxide pigment, TiO2. Thus, in the absence of sufficient protection by encapsulation or addition of antioxidants, the ultraviolet light-absorbing pigment promoted the formation of free radicals and photocatalytic oxidation. The results of this study show that consumer plastics containing TiO2 for coloration or tinting purposes, when not designed for exterior use (in the absence of encapsulation or antioxidants), may experience accelerated weathering in the marine environment, and that estimates of plastic persistence should factor in the role of additives that promote photoactivity.

Street Sexual Harassment: Experiences and Attitudes among Young Spanish People.

Violence against women (VAW) is gender-based violence directed at women and girls on account of being female that can take on multiple forms and manifest in different contexts. Among the many possible forms of VAW, this article focuses on "piropos", a type of stranger harassment situation. Specifically, the objectives of this study were two-fold: to analyze the usefulness of a tool to evaluate social attitudes towards this form of VAW and to analyze the influence of sociodemographic variables and prior victimization (whether as a witness or victim) on attitudes towards this type of violence among Spanish youth. An opportunity sample of 538 young Spanish people took part in this study. They filled out a sociodemographic data sheet, a victimization questionnaire designed ad hoc, and a questionnaire on attitudes towards "piropos". The results obtained indicate that the questionnaire was adequate for use as a tool to evaluate social attitudes towards this type of VAW and suggest its applicability for future studies on attitudes towards "piropos" as a type of stranger harassment situation in a Spanish context. Moreover, the results on victimization not only corroborate the magnitude of street sexual harassment in Spain and a direct effect of gender on the perception of the violence experienced, they also reinforce the need to further investigate new aspects. Regarding attitudes towards "piropos", the results obtained indicate that, in general, participants demonstrated negative attitudes or rejection, and these feelings were particularly strong among women.

Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: An Exploratory Study.

There is consistent evidence that attitudes are important in understanding how people react and behave toward victims and perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women. Researchers have typically measured these attitudes through self-reports. However, explicit measures are prone to socially desirable responding. The overall objective of our research is to provide multimethod measures of public attitudes (explicit and implicit) toward intimate partner violence against women. An opportunity sample of 190 Psychology undergraduates (32 men and 158 women) took part in this study and completed two self-reports: the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence, and the Inventory of Beliefs about Wife Beating. In addition, they completed a personalized Implicit Association Test, the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test. This study provides evidence of the best way to apply the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test (with feedback) and the best procedure for estimating the Implicit Association Test effect (built-in error penalty). The findings are also consistent with previous research and exhibit a significant disparity between explicit and implicit measures of attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women. These findings, although still preliminary, provide interesting information that affirms the need to incorporate implicit measures of attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women into research on this social problem.

The Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test to measure attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women.

Attitudes play a central role in intimate partner violence against women and are related to its origin, to the responses of women who suffer violence, and to the settings where it occurs. In fact, these attitudes are recognized as one of the risk factors linked to violent perpetration and to public, professional, and victim responses to this type of violence. However, even though available research generally shows a broad rejection of this violence, it remains a serious social and health problem that has reached epidemic proportions. This suggests that the information available about these attitudes (obtained through explicit and direct measures, i.e., self-reports) may be distorted or influenced by factors such as social desirability. In this context, the overall objective of our research project is to provide multi-method measures (explicit and implicit) of attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women, and the main goal of this paper is to propose an instrument for the implicit measurement of these attitudes. In this regard, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most common procedure used, providing a superior predictive validity compared to explicit measures for socially sensitive topics. We will present an exploratory study that describes its adaptation for our purposes, and the development of the Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test (GV-IAT) to use among Spanish-speaking populations, and discuss the strengths and limitations of this proposal.

Measurement of supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women among a Spanish-speaker sample.

Intimate partner violence is the most common type of violence against women. Attitudes towards this violence are increasingly recognized as key to understanding this social and public health problem because a social environment that accepts or even supports it creates a climate that breeds further violence and encourages their perpetration. The evidence available shows that these attitudes are influenced by different individual, organizational and community factors, and that the supportive attitudes are generally more common among males, and among older and less educated people. This paper presents two cross-sectional studies which aim to obtain a deeper understanding of supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women in a Spanish-speakers context. Results obtained show that the two questionnaires used may be useful for evaluating supporting attitudes towards this violence in Spanish-speaking samples. Thus, the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence (IPDMV), one of the one of the most widely used tools to this aim among Spanish-speakers, includes information regarding the minimization of this violence and the responsibility of perpetrators, and it seems better able to capture the effect of previous training, which would be consistent with the fact that it was initially designed to detect the effects of interventions; and the Inventory of Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence (IBIPV), a new tool recently designed to this aim, is more focused on supportive attitudes and seems more effective for capturing differences between men and women in blaming victims and exonerating perpetrators. Additionally, the results obtained allow us to complement previous studies on the effects that factors such as gender, age, or previous training have on supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women.

Comparing Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence Against Women.

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is an epidemic social and public health problem. Research has consistently found evidence for a complex etiology of IPVAW resulting from the interaction of many factors, among which gender-related norms and attitudes are among the main drivers of this violence. Public attitudes toward IPVAW are especially important because attitudes rejecting, condoning, or fostering such behavior are social factors that contribute to a climate of tolerance or refusal that can shape the social environment in which such violence takes place. Given the importance of these attitudes, the availability of reliable, valid, and concise measures is critical for both research and intervention purposes. The evidence shows a probable bias of direct or explicit assessment measures of IPVAW attitudes, and it has been suggested that they should be complemented by indirect or implicit measures. In this context, the main aim of this paper was to examine how implicit and explicit attitudes toward IPVAW differ among a Spanish population. An opportunity sample of 693 students took part in this study. Two direct or explicit measures (the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence, IPDMV, and the Inventory of Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence, IBIPV) and one indirect or implicit measure [the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test (GV-IAT), a personalized form of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)] were applied. The results obtained show that the psychometric characteristics of the implicit measure used (GV-IAT) are acceptable. Additionally, we obtained significant differences by gender, IPVAW knowledge, IPVAW involvement, and political opinion when we measured IPVAW attitudes by implicit measures. However, when we measured these attitudes by explicit measures, we only obtained significant differences by gender and political opinion. Finally, the results highlight the important differences between the levels of strong IPVAW rejection measured with explicit and implicit measures, confirming the traditional discrepancy between explicit and implicit measures of attitudes. In summary, the results obtained provide additional support for the idea that GV-IAT constitutes a promising assessment tool to complement explicit measures for attitudes toward IPVAW.

Psychosocial Implications of Supportive Attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence against Women throughout the Lifecycle.

Supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) normalize and promote these aggressive behaviors. As a result, more and more research is proposing the identification, analysis and intervention of these attitudes. However, the vast majority of this research focuses on students. The main objective of this paper is to analyze these supportive attitudes throughout the lifecycle. An opportunity sample of 200 Spanish participants, by age and sex fixed quotas, took part in this study. Attitudes were measured using the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence, the Inventory of Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence and the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test, a personalized form of Implicit Association Test (IAT). The results show that explicitly measured supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women differ between age groups, adopting a U-shape distribution: lower acceptance among middle-aged-adults and young-adults and higher acceptance among adolescents and older adults. However, when these attitudes were implicitly measured, the IPVAW rejection increased with age, which is a counter-intuitive result and inconsistent with previous theoretical evidence. In summary, these results support an age effect that differs according to the measure of attitudes used and highlight some difficulties related to based-on-reaction-time measures among older people. This suggests the need for further research on the topic, especially among the older population.

The Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test to measure attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women

Attitudes play a central role in intimate partner violence against women and are related to its origin, to the responses of women who suffer violence, and to the settings where it occurs. In fact, these attitudes are recognized as one of the risk factors linked to violent perpetration and to public, professional, and victim responses to this type of violence. However, even though available research generally shows a broad rejection of this violence, it remains a serious social and health problem that has reached epidemic proportions. This suggests that the information available about these attitudes (obtained through explicit and direct measures, i.e., self-reports) may be distorted or influenced by factors such as social desirability. In this context, the overall objective of our research project is to provide multi-method measures (explicit and implicit) of attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women, and the main goal of this paper is to propose an instrument for the implicit measurement of these attitudes. In this regard, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most common procedure used, providing a superior predictive validity compared to explicit measures for socially sensitive topics. We will present an exploratory study that describes its adaptation for our purposes, and the development of the Gender Violence - Implicit Association Test (GV-IAT) to use among Spanish-speaking populations, and discuss the strengths and limitations of this proposal.

Beliefs and attitudes about intimate partner violence against women in Spain.

BACKGROUND: Some attitudes serve to justify violence against women, to blame women for the violence they experience, and to perpetuate levels of this violence. These attitudes often stem from traditional norms and beliefs which are important to identify. The purpose of this study is to compare beliefs about intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) between two time points, examining the effect of the respondents– sex and previous academic-training. METHOD: Two opportunity samples of undergraduates took part in this study: 1,392 in 2006 (34.4% men and 65.6% women) and 730 in 2018 (36.3% men and 63.7% women). A four-factor model from the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts on Women and Violence (IPDMV) was used after assessing fit through CFA. RESULTS: Significant differences between 2006 and 2018 in all factors were found using MANCOVA (covariable: age). Differences were also found by sex and previous academic-training, and effects of interaction in the first factor between these variables and the time point. CONCLUSIONS: The beliefs and distorted thoughts about women and violence fell between the two time points analysed, with less acceptance of these beliefs among women and people with prior IPVAW academic-training.

Survival and drifting patterns of grass carp eggs and larvae in response to interactions with flow and sediment in a laboratory flume.

A series of laboratory experiments was conducted to better understand the behavior of grass carp eggs and larvae in moving water in order to develop and implement new strategies for control and prediction of their dispersal and drift at early life stages. Settling velocity and density of a representative sample of eggs were estimated, and three trials of flume experiments with different flow conditions were conducted with live eggs in a temperature-controlled setting with a mobile sediment bed. In these trials, egg and larval stages were continuously analyzed over periods of 80 hours; and eggs and larvae interactions with the flow and sediment bed were monitored and characterized qualitatively and quantitatively. Survival rates were quantified after each trial, highlighting physical causes for increased mortality. Detailed flow analysis was correlated to the observed drifting and swimming behavior of eggs and larvae, to estimate distributions across the water depth, as well as traveling and swimming speeds. Evidence of the influence of mean and turbulent flow in the suspension and transport of eggs are reported, and swimming patterns of larvae at different developmental stages are described. These findings support the development of new strategies for monitoring the spread of grass carp eggs and larvae in rivers, and provide new inputs to predict conditions favorable for spawning and hatching, allowing for mitigation measures at early life stages, which are critical to control their dispersal.

Use of New Technologies in the Prevention of Suicide in Europe: An Exploratory Study.

BACKGROUND: New technologies are an integral component of today's society and can complement existing suicide prevention programs. Here, we analyzed the use of new technologies in the prevention of suicide in 8 different European countries. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper was to assess the opinions of professionals in incorporating such resources into the design of a suicide prevention program for the region of Zamora in Spain. This investigation, encompassed within the European project entitled European Regions Enforcing Actions against Suicide (EUREGENAS), includes 11 regions from 8 different countries and attempts to advance the field of suicide prevention in Europe. METHODS: Using a specifically designed questionnaire, we assessed the opinions of 3 different groups of stakeholders regarding the use, frequency of use, facilitators, content, and format of new technologies for the prevention of suicide. The stakeholders were comprised of policy and public management professionals, professionals working in the area of mental health, and professionals related to the social area and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). A total of 416 participants were recruited in 11 regions from 8 different European countries. RESULTS: The utility of the new technologies was valued positively in all 8 countries, despite these resources being seldom used in those countries. In all the countries, the factors that contributed most to facilitating the use of new technologies were accessibility and free of charge. Regarding the format of new technologies, the most widely preferred formats for use as a tool for the prevention of suicide were websites and email. The availability of information about signs of alarm and risk factors was the most relevant content for the prevention of suicide through the use of new technologies. The presence of a reference mental health professional (MHP) was also considered to be a key aspect. The countries differed in the evaluations given to the different formats suggesting that the cultural characteristics of the country should be taken into account. CONCLUSIONS: New technologies are much appreciated resources; however they are not often underused in the field of suicide prevention. The results of this exploratory study show that new technologies are indeed useful resources and should be incorporated into suicide prevention programs.

Manifestaciones cutáneas de lupus eritematoso sistémico temprano y correlación con la actividad sistémica / Cutaneous manifestations of early systemic lupus erythematosus and correlation with systemic activity

Las manifestaciones cutáneas del lupus eritematoso sistémico (LES) son heterogéneas (específicas e inespecíficas). Poco se sabe acerca de la relación entre estas manifestaciones y la actividad clínica e inmunológica de la enfermedad en sus etapas iniciales. Se llevó a cabo un estudio de corte transversal en 34 pacientes con LES temprano. Se encontró una asociación significativa entre alopecia e hipocomplementemia C3 (p = 0,021), hipocomplementemia C4 (p < 0,001) y anti-Sm (p = 0,011); entre eritema malar y anti-Ro (p = 0,037) y anti-La (p = 0,037); entre fotosensibilidad y anti-RNP (p = 0,037). Se observó una tendencia a la asociación entre úlceras orales e hipocomplementemia C4 (p = 0,064). No hubo asociación entre las manifestaciones cutáneas y la presencia de anti-ADN de doble cadena (anti-ds ADN), anticuerpos anticardiolipinas, anticoagulante lúpico, VDRL falso positivo, leucopenia, trombocitopenia, hipergammaglobulinemia, elevación de la velocidad de sedimentación globular o SLEDAI. Se resalta la importancia de la relación entre las manifestaciones cutáneas inespecíficas de LES (alopecia y fotosensibilidad) y la actividad sistémica en pacientes con enfermedad temprana y la clara asociación de estas con hipocomplementemia, un marcador importante de actividad inmunológica.

Cutaneous manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are heterogeneous (both specific and non-specific). Little is known about the relationship between these manifestations and the clinical and immunological activity of the disease in early stages. We carried out a cross-sectional study in 34 patients with early SLE. We found a significant association between alopecia and hypocomplementemia C3 (p = 0.021), hypocomplementemia C4 (p < 0.001) and anti-Sm (p = 0.011); between malar erythema and anti-Ro (p = 0.037) and anti-La (p = 0.037); between photosensitivity and anti-RNP (p = 0.037). We observed a trend to association between oral ulcers and hypocomplementemia C4 (p = 0.064). No association was found between cutaneous manifestations and the presence of anti-ds DNA, anticardiolipin antibodies, lupus anticoagulant, false-positive VDRL, leucopenia, thrombocytopenia, hypergammaglobulinemia, elevated erythrosedimentation rate or SLEDAI. We highlight the relevance of the relationship between non-specific cutaneous manifestations of early SLE (alopecia and photosensitivity) and the systemic activity of the disease and hypocomplementemia, an important marker of immunological activity.