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Age-specific and sex-specific incidence of systemic lupus erythematosus: an estimate from cross-sectional claims data of 2.3 million people in the German statutory health insurance 2002
  1. Ralph Brinks1,2,
  2. Annika Hoyer2,
  3. Sergej Weber1,
  4. Rebecca Fischer-Betz1,3,
  5. Oliver Sander1,3,
  6. Jutta G Richter1,3,
  7. Gamal Chehab1,3 and
  8. Matthias Schneider1,3
  1. 1Hiller Research Unit for Rheumatology, University Hospital Duesseldorf, Duesseldorf, Germany
  2. 2German Diabetes Center, Institute for Biometry and Epidemiology, Duesseldorf, Germany
  3. 3Policlinics for Rheumatology, University Hospital Duesseldorf, Duesseldorf, Germany
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ralph Brinks; ralph.brinks{at}med.uni-duesseldorf.de

Abstract

Objective To provide an estimate of age-specific incidence rate of physician-diagnosed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) for German men and women.

Methods The age-specific and sex-specific prevalence of diagnosed SLE in claims data is used to estimate the incidence in the German male and female population. The claims data set stems from a representative sample of the statutory health insurance in 2002 and comprises 2.3 million people. The statutory health insurance covers >85% of the German population.

Results The estimated incidence rates are 0.9 (95% CI 0.7 to 1.1) per 100 000 person-years for men and 1.9 (95% CI 1.7 to 2.2) per 100 000 person-years for women. The age-specific incidence rate of SLE in the male population has a maximum of 2.2 (95% CI 1.0 to 3.4) per 100 000 person-years at the age of 65–70 years. In women, the incidence is peaking at the rate of 3.6 (95% CI 2.9 to 4.3) cases per 100 000 person-years at the age of 20–25 years, but has a second local maximum (2.6, 95% CI 1.5 to 3.8) at menopausal age.

Conclusions For the first time, representative data on the incidence of SLE in Germany are provided. The estimated incidence rates of SLE for men and women in Germany are at the lower end of other estimates from comparable European countries.

  • Incidence
  • Germany
  • statutory health insurance
  • claims data

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/lupus-2016-000181

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RB developed the methods, drafted the text, and performed the analysis. RB, AH, SW, RF-B, OS, JGR, GC and MS critically revised the text, gave important intellectual contributions and final approval of the version to be published.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The data presented in this article are based on the data published in peer-reviewed journals only. These data sources have been properly cited; no unpublished data have been used.