Call for Papers : Volume 11, Issue 04, April 2024, Open Access; Impact Factor; Peer Reviewed Journal; Fast Publication

Multimodal imaging findings of subclinical atherosclerosis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus evaluated at the naval general hospital of high specialty

Introduction: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a high mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CV) associated with the presence of accelerated subclinical atherosclerosis, this atherosclerosis is one of the main factors for CV mortality. Material and methods: Cross-sectional study, included patients diagnosed with SLE from December 2016 to July 2017. Patients were classified into 2 groups: active and non-active SLE. All patients had measurements of lipid profile, inflammatory reactants, blood chemistry, ego and creatinine clearance in 24 hrs, as well as the accomplishment of calcium score by tomography and bilateral carotid Doppler ultrasound. We performed bivariate association with Chi-square and logistic regression. Results: A total of 41 patients were included, of which 3 were men (7.3%) and 38 were women (92.7%). The average ages were men 26.33 + - 5.03 years and women 41.52 + -13.87 years. Our model only identified 3 statistically significant variables: C3 (p = 0.041) and the variables that are obtained by ultrasound such as the presence of atherosclerosis plaque by ultrasound (p = 0.043) and the intima average thickness (p = 0.027). However, the calcium score taken by tomography did not show significant participation for this predictive model (p = 0.683). The largest OR was represented by the thickness of the left carotid intima. Discussion: There is an association between the activity of the disease and the presence of hypertension, dyslipidemia within the classic factors, presence of atherosclerosis plaques observed by Doppler ultrasound, thickening of the intima media of the left carotid. A multivariate model allows early and timely detection of patients who are in non-active conditions of the disease and have a close follow-up with them to avoid the presence of subclinical atherosclerosis and thus have a better prognosis for patients.

Author: 
Dr. Julia Gpe. Genaro Sierra, Dr. Ernesto A. Roldan Valadez and Dr. Rogerio Santiago Herrera
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