Clinical analysis of peripheral neuropathy in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the frequence and clinical characteristics of peripheral neuropathy (PN) of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in China.Methods The data of 67 consecutive PN related with SLE (SLE-PN) patients admitted to Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) during January 1995 to August 2011 were retrospectively analyzed.At the same time,a total of 201 cases were randomly selected as controls from 4447 SLE patients without SLE-PN in PUMCH during the same period.Chi-square test,t test and Mann-Whitney test were used for statistical analysis.Results The prevalence of SLE-PN in SLE patients was 1.5％(67/4514).Seventy-two cases of PN were discovered in 67 patients.Polyneuropathy was the most frequent presentation and was diagnosed in 45 cases(62.5％),mononeuropathy in 9 cases (12.5％),myasthenia gravis in 8 cases (11.1％),cranial neuropathy in 7 cases (9.7％),autonomic disorder in 2 cases (2.8％) and acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy in 1 case (1.4％).No plexopathy was diagnosed.No symptoms were observed in 5 cases (6.9％) PN.There were differences between SLE patients with and without SLE-PN in age[(37±14) years vs (32±14) years,P＜0.05],fever(65.7％ vs 47.8％,P＜0.05),myositis (17.9％ vs 5.0％,P＜0.01),skin and mucous involvement of skin and mucous (80.6％ vs 59.7％,P＜0.01),central nervous system involvement (38.8％ vs 19.9％,P＜0.01),gastrointestinal involvement (6.0％ vs 18.4％,P＜0.05),anti-Sm antibody positivity (34.4％ vs 18.6％,P＜0.05),anti-RNP antibody positivity (46.9％ vs 29.9％,P＜0.05),elevation of IgG (52.4％ vs 30.1％,P＜0.01),and SLEDAI score [12.0(9.0) vs 9.5(10.8),P＜0.05].Conclusion SLE-PN is not rare in patients with SLE.SLE patients with peripheral neuropathy tend to have more active disease.Multidisciplinary collaboration and comprehensive treatment can help to relieve pain and improve the quality of life.