Association of the Disease Duration and Administered Therapy with Metabolic Syndrome in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Aim. The aim of the paper was to examine the impact of disease duration and administered therapy on the development of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).Material and methods. This study involved 55 patients (50 females and 5 males) with the diagnosis and 49 healthy controls of similar age. MetS was defined according to modified NCEP-ATP III diagnostic criteria, and obesity was defined by body mass index BMI > 30. Results. In the group of SLE patients with MetS, there were 23 individuals (41.82%). In the control group, there were 10 (20.4%) patients with MetS. There were significantly more SLE patients with MetS in comparison to the controls (p = 0.04). Duration of the disease in the group with MetS was longer in comparison to those without MetS, but it was not statistically significant (15.35 +/- 10.26 vs 10.44 +/- 7.88, p = 0.073). The study confirmed that there is a moderate association (CC = 0.355) between disease duration and number of MetS parameters, however, this dependency was not statistically significant (p = 0.439). In the group without MetS, there were statistically more patients treated with antimalarial drugs monotherapy (p = 0.023). It has been found that the patients with MetS were treated with corticosteroid therapy longer than those without MetS, but it was not statistically significant (153.57 +/- 103.34 vs 114.75 +/- 83.32, p = 0.129).Conclusion. Patients with longer SLE duration have more often MetS. It has been shown that, statistically, more patients without MetS were treated with antimalarial drugs monotherapy, and that long-term CS use, in our study, was not associated with higher incidence of MetS.