Rheumatology 2001; 40: 228-229
© 2001 British Society for Rheumatology
Letters to the Editor |
Survival of Mexican patients with systemic lupus erythematosus
Department of Immunology and Rheumatology and Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición ‘Salvador Zubirán’, 14000 Mexico DF, Mexico and
1 Department of Rheumatology, Unit of Internal Medicine, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina
SIR, The recent article by Urowitz and Gladman [1] on mortality and morbidity in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) presents a table that summarizes 25 studies from 13 countries on survival rates in series published from 1955. It was surprising to us that our series was not included in this review, particularly since it was published in 1994 in a journal the authors know well [2]. One possibility might be that it was overlooked since the title of our paper stressed the negative influence of the antiphospholipid syndrome on survival rates. The survival rates of our entire cohort of 667 SLE patients compare favourably to those of other series from developed countries. Thus, survival since the first symptom attributable to SLE was 96% at 5 yr and 92% at 10 yr. We would like to have this published in your journal for the sake of completing the information provided by an otherwise very instructive review.
Notes
Correspondence to: D. Alarcón-Segovia. 
Accepted 4 August 2000
References
- Urowitz MB, Gladman DD. How to improve morbidity and mortality in systemic lupus erythematosus. Rheumatology2000;39:238–44.
[Free Full Text] - Drenkard C, Villa AR, Alarcón-Segovia D. Influence of the antiphospholipid syndrome in the survival of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. J Rheumatol1994;21:1067–72.[Web of Science][Medline]
Reply
Centre for Prognosis Studies in The Rheumatic Diseases, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dr Alarcón Segovia was surprised that the series of cases from Mexico City was not included in the table provided in our paper [1]. We were aware of their paper [2], but did not include their results in our table because their survival analysis was difficult to interpret. They calculated survival at 96% at 5 yr and 92% at 10 yr from the time of first symptom of SLE. However, when they calculated survival from the time of inclusion in their cohort, the 5-yr survival was only 91%. Most studies report survival rates based on the time of diagnosis, a concept introduced by Merrell and Shulman in 1955 [3].
Notes
Correspondence to: D. D. Gladman.
References
- Gladman DD, Urowitz MB. How to improve morbidity and mortality in systemic lupus erythematosus. Rheumatology2000;39:23–43.
- Drenkard C, Villa AR, Alarcón-Segovia D. Influence of antiphospholipid syndrome in the survival of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. J Rheumatol1994;21:1067–72.[Web of Science][Medline]
- Merrell M, Shulman LE. Determination of prognosis in chronic disease, illustrated by systemic lupus erythematosus. J Chronic Dis1955;1:12.[Medline]
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||