Cross-sectional study on clinical characteristic and medical care-seek behavior of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and the situation of diagnosis after onset. Methods Three hundred outpatients diagnosed with SLE were investigated in the People's Hospital, the Third Hospital of Peking University, Xinjiang People's Hospital and the Affiliated Hospital from May to July 2008, including gender, age of onset, clinical manifestations and the site of first hospitalization. Results ① In the cross-sectional study, 300 SLE patients were investigated. The male-to-female ratio was 113. ② The most common manifestations at onset were arthritis (46.3%), rash (34.%) and fever (32.7%). Lupus nephritis was found to occur in a significantly higher frequency in male patients than female as the initial manifestation. 60.9% patients had lupus nephritis in the first year after onset. ③ 99.1% of the patients were correctly diagnosed after visiting rheumatologists. 23.7% of the SLE patients were not correctly diagnosed for more than one year after disease onset. Conclusion Arthritis, rash and fever are the most common initial clinical manifestations of SLE. Lupus nephritis is more commonly seen in male SLE patients than female at the disease onset. The diagnosis of lupus is delayed in certain proportion of patients.