The Prevalence of Endothelial Dysfunction in Female SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) Patients and its Risk Factors

Atherosclerosis has a high prevalence in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and the vascular endothelial dysfunction is the earliest stage of the atherosclerosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of vascular endothelial dysfunction and its risk factors in SLE women and then to identify its correlation with the disease activity, duration and concomitant conditions in these patients.Eighty four female SLE patients and 18 healthy young female were included in the study. The vascular endothelial function was evaluated via ultrasonographic assessment of the brachial artery diameter to determine flow mediated dilation (FMD) and Post TNG dilation-FMD gap (PFG) indexes. The FMD index, one standard deviation lower than mean FMD of the control group was considered as impaired FMD and PFG index one standard deviation more than mean PFG of the control group was defined as impaired PFG.SLE patients hade higher prevalence of impaired FMD than healthy subjects (48.8 vs. 5.5%,). The prevalence of impaired PFG in SLE cases and healthy subjects was 25 and 5.5%,respectively. FMD and PFG impairment did not have any significant correlation with disease activity, duration, the presence of the anti-dsDNA, anticardiolipin antibodies, antiphospholipid syndrome, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, history of lupus nephropathy, and history of receiving cyclophosphamid pulses.The vascular endothelial dysfunction is very prevalent in SLE patients and no specific factor alone can explain this finding.