QRISK3-based analysis of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with long-term but well-controlled systemic lupus erythematosus

In this study, involving 180 patients, we compared the performance of the Framingham risk score, the recalibrated risk prediction SCORE, and QRISK3 for the assessment of CVD in patients with a long course of disease and low disease activity. Then, we used a more efficient algorithm, QRISK3 to identify the risk factors for CVD. This was a prospective and cross-sectional study involving 116 patients. All patients fulfilled the ACR criteria. The systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K) is widely used to assess disease activity in SLE patients; patients with a SLEDAI-2K less than or equal to 4 are considered to be stable. Thus, we defined well-controlled patients as those with a SLEDAI-2K score less than or equal to 4. The dose of glucocorticoid (GC) that patients received was less or equal to 10 mg per day. We recorded and assessed a range of traditional risk factors, current treatments, comorbidities, data at the time of onset, and SLE-related evaluations. The QRISK3 score, and the relative risk (RR) that this score defined, were used to estimate the risk of CVD in patients with SLE. According to these relative risks, the patients were divided into low- (n=28), intermediate- (n=46), and high-relative risk (n=31) groups for subgroup analysis. Of the 116 patients enrolled, 105 were eligible to be assessed for the risk of CVD. By univariate analyses, the RR was significantly related with age at the time of enrolment (p<0.001), age at onset (p<0.00...
Source: American Journal of Translational Research - Category: Research Authors: Source Type: research