ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: At present, the relationship between serum homocysteine and microalbuminuria (MAU) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients is still unclear. Therefore, the aim of our study was to analyze the association between serum homocysteine and MAU in SLE patients. METHODS: The study analyzed 150 patients with SLE at Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities retrospectively, and we collected for clinical and laboratory data. RESULTS: We found a positive correlation between serum homocysteine and MAU in SLE patients (r = 0.430, p < 0.001). We found that serum homocysteine levels were increased in SLE patients with MAU positive compared to those who were MAU negative (p < 0.001). After adjusting for multiple confounding factors, we found that serum homocysteine maintained a positive correlation with MAU in patients with SLE in multivariate correlation analysis (p = 0.253, r = 0.002). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with an area under the curve of 0.730, and serum homocysteine had 72.2% sensitivity and 61.9% specificity with cutoff values 9.0 to identify the SLE patients with MAU positive. CONCLUSIONS: The current results found a correlation between serum homocysteine and MAU in SLE patients, suggesting that elevated serum homocysteine levels might be an adverse factor for SLE patients with kidney injury.
