Session Information
Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Title: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus – Clinical Poster III: Treatment
Session Type: ACR Poster Session C
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose:
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease involving many organs and systems. Evidences show that vitamin D plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of SLE. Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in SLE patients due to photoprotection, renal insufficiency and use of different medication. But a causal relationship between vitamin D serum concentration and disease activity in SLE patient could not be established.
To evaluate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in patient with SLE and to investigate the association between vitamin D serum concentrations and disease activity, fatigue and quality of life and autoantibodies levels in SLE patients.
Methods:
We included a total number of 92 patients diagnosed with SLE according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) classification criteria. We assessed disease activity according to SLEDAI and organs damage according to SLICC criteria. All patients completed the quality of life questionnaires Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and EuroQol. Serum vitamin D levels were measured by standardized immunochemical assay from blood samples.
Results:
We analyzed 92 patients, 85 (92,4%) women and 7 (7,6%) men. 43 (46,7%) patients had lower level of vitamin D than the standard given by the laboratory (< 50 nmol/l), the mean was 38,3±11,2 nmol/l.
On contrary to some recent studies we did not find any statistically significant differences in the quality of life, fatigue, and disease activity between two groups with low and normal vitamin D levels. Conversely, in low vitamin D group, milder fatigue, better quality of life and lower anti-dsDNA antibody levels were found. Only when we compared a group of 35 patients with an initially low level of vitamin D (39,7±9,8) after supplementing it to standardize its level (67,3±15,7), we found improvements in quality of life, functional ability of patients, fatigue reduction, and decreased SLE activity in these patients according to SLEDAI.
Conclusion:
We demonstrated a very high frequency of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency among patients with SLE. But we didn´t establish a causal relationship between vitamin D serum concentration and disease activity in SLE patients. On the other hand, we demonstrated a trend of fatigue and disease activity reduction with vitamin D supplementation in these patients. The limitation of our observation was mainly small sample size of patients and although we included patients with established diagnosis of SLE who are on the long treatment including glucocorticoids and other immunosuppressive drugs.
This study was supported by the Research Project No. 0002372801 of the Czech Ministry of Health.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Moravcova R, Ciferska H, Olejarova M, Tegzova D, Zavada J, Lösterova M. Serum Vitamin D Levels and Its Effect on Disease Activity and Fatigue in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2018; 70 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/serum-vitamin-d-levels-and-its-effect-on-disease-activity-and-fatigue-in-systemic-lupus-erythematosus-patients/. Accessed .« Back to 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/serum-vitamin-d-levels-and-its-effect-on-disease-activity-and-fatigue-in-systemic-lupus-erythematosus-patients/