Pulmonary involvement in early systemic lupus erythematosus

Aim of the work: SLE is an autoimmune disease characterized by a variety of clinical and laboratory abnormalities. It may affect many organs and pulmonary involvement is a common finding in SLE. The purpose of this study was to disclose the pulmonary involvement in early SLE patients not more than 2 years of disease duration using the computed tomography (CT) as well as the pulmonary function tests as ways of pulmonary involvement assessment. Patients and methods: Forty-two patients aged 29 +/- 12.5 with early SLE not more than 2 years of disease duration were recruited for the study. All patients were assessed clinically for their SLE with BILAG which was utilized for disease activity determination. Results: Nine and half percent of our patients were found to be clinically involved by ILD, where 28.6% have abnormal HRCT finding, 26.2% with abnormal PFT. Variants that were associated with an abnormal forced vital capacity FVC < 80% in a significant manner were: smoking, long disease duration, self-reported pulmonary symptoms (p 0.001), BILAG global score (p 0.006), Anti dsDNA (p 0.001), Antiphospholipid (IgM or IgG) (p 0.01), anti Sm (p 0.002), anti-RNP (p 0.005), HRCT abnormalities (p 0.001), current medication of steroid (any dose) (p 0.005), immunomodulator therapy (p 0.002), and Rituximab therapy (p 0.001). Conclusions: ILD occurs as early as in the first 2 years in the course of SLE patients. There was a clear predilection of ILD with certain variables in our cohort of patients. (C) 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Society for Joint Diseases and Arthritis.