Vitamin D Pattern in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus with and without Nephritis

Abstract

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease where chronic inflammation and organ damage is observed due to various suspected causes e.g. inadequate levels of vitamin D (a steroid hormone with immunomodulatory effects). Objective: To assess vitamin D (VD) levels in serum of patients with lupus nephritis (LN) in comparison with patients with extra-renal lupus and healthy controls, and to assess the relation between VD levels and the various clinical and laboratory disease parameters. Patients and Methods: This was a case-control study that was held in Zagazig University Hospitals between June 2019 and July 2020. The study included 40 patients admitted with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with and without lupus nephritis (LN), and 20 age-matched healthy subjects. Laboratory investigations such as complete blood count, electrolytes, PTH, acute phase reactant, complements, Ads DNA and 25(OH) D levels of the subjects were measured. Results: Patients with SLE with lupus nephritis were significantly lower regarding vitamin D with no significant difference between patients with SLE without LN and control group. Conclusions: Our study revealed a high frequency of Vit D deficiency and insufficiency among patients with SLE with LN compared to SLE without LN and healthy controls.

Study of LRRK2 and Beclin-1: Gene expression as autophagic markers in systemic lupus Erythromatosus in Egyptian populations

“…This present study showed a significant increase in CRP level in SLE group than control group. This agreed with many studies which reported higher CRP in SLE group than normal persons [10,11] . Regarding Immunological markers, ANA level was significantly increased in SLE group contrasted to control group.…”

“…This study showed that ESR was significantly increased in SLE group compared to control group. This agreed with several studies which reported higher ESR in SLE group than normal persons, which might be due to increased fibrinogen in the acute phase response of the disease activity [10,11,13] . This present study showed a significant increase in CRP level in SLE group than control group.…”

“…The platelets (Plt) count showed significant decrease in SLE group contrasted to the control group. This was in accordance with Baroni et al, Mahmoud et al [11,14] and Zhan et al [15] who reported lower platelets count in SLE ~ 124 ~ group contrasted to the levels of the control group, while Cylwik et al [10] and Uzkeser et al [13] observed no difference between the control group and patient group that was significant. This study showed that ESR was significantly increased in SLE group compared to control group.…”

“…This was in consistent with many studies which found lower levels of Hb concentration in SLE in comparison to normal persons. They explained that by the effect of cytokines on iron hemostasis and erythropoietin production [10,11,12] . On the other hand, Uzkeser et al [13] said that Hb levels between the SLE group and control group did not differ significantly.…”