Clinicopathological features of our patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and their comparison with the literature data

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a frequent autoimmune disorders across the world. İt is more frequent in young female vomen however could be senin both sexes and at all ages. Disease incidence, clinical and laboratory features vary depending of geographic and ethnic regions and races. Due to inreasing of awareness of the disease by heath professionals and the patient ,disease incidence and prevalence rates of also seem to be increasing. This study aimed to invastigate the clinicopathological features of patients with SLE in our country.Our study included face to face interviews with patients who are older than 18 years, followed up by Gazi University,Department of İnternal Medecine division of Rheumatologyfrom May 2011 to Semptember 2011. Patients data were collected retrospectively,including medical history and laboratory tests from the hospital?s computer system, files. Patients who satisifed the diognised criteria of SLE according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria were included.We included 127 patients, 115 females and 12 males, with a mean age of 37,8. Mean age of the onset of symptoms was 34 and, mean age at the time of diagnosis 37.4. Advanced age-onset SLE (> 50 years) was 17.3%. The most common disease manifestations were articular abnormalities (78%) and photosensetivity (70.9%). Serositis, thrombocytopenia, discoid rash and neuropsychiatric involvement was seen less frequently. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) were detected in 100 % and anti-dsDNA in 70.1% of patients. The mean age of our patients at diagnosis was smiliar to studies from Europe. Hematologic and renal abnormalities that were observed high rates in many Asian countries , were observed less frequently in our studyİn conclusion, this is a single-center, retrospective study of clinicopathologic features of patients with SLE in our clinic, and findings could not be generalized to the entire country, hovewer, it is important for us to give an idea about the clinical spectrum of SLE patients in Turkey.Key words: Sistemik lupus erythematosus, Ethnicity,Disparities