Featured New InvestigatorsDifferences in subclinical cardiovascular disease between African American and Caucasian women with systemic lupus erythematosus
Section snippets
Study population
A total of 309 SLE women, all of whom met at least 4 classification criteria for SLE, aged 18 years or older, and without a history of clinical CVD events (which included myocardial infarction [MI], angina, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, cerebrovascular accident [CVA], or transient ischemic attack [TIA]), were enrolled from the Chicago Lupus Database and the Pittsburgh Lupus Registry for the purposes of this study. The Chicago Lupus
Results
In all, 309 SLE women were included in the analysis from both sites; 63 women were AA, and 246 women were Caucasian. AA women were significantly younger compared with the Caucasian women (44.6 ±10.3 years vs 47.6 ±10.6 years, P < 0.05), but this difference in age was no longer significant after adjustment for study site.
Discussion
This study is the first to investigate racial differences in subclinical CVD at various vascular beds in SLE women. We found that AA women with SLE are 2 times more likely to have carotid plaque than Caucasians. In our study, the traditional risk factors that were more prevalent in AA women with lupus included higher levels of blood pressure, BMI, and lipoprotein(a). Education level was slightly lower in AAs. For lupus-related factors, AAs had more disease activity, greater disease damage, more
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Cited by (0)
Supported by grants T32-AR07611, F32-AR51681, and K23-AR054418 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Mary Kirkland Center for Lupus Research and Rheuminations, Inc. (to E.R.); by grants NIH K24-AR02318, P60-AR30692, P60-AR48098, NCRR/GCRC, and M01-RR00048 (to R.R.G.); by grants NIH R01-AR046588 and K24-AR002213 (to S.M.); and by grant NIH K23 AR051044 and the American College of Rheumatology/REF Physician Scientist Development Award (to A.H.K.).
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Elisa Y. Rhew, MD, MSCI, is Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine. Her article is based on a presentation given at the Combined Annual Meeting of the Central Society for Clinical Research and Midwestern Section American Federation for Medical Research held in Chicago, Ill, April 2008.