Measurement of lupus activity and cumulative damage in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Introduction: measuring the activity of the disease and the irreversible damage in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus is of vital importance to evaluate the outcome measures of the patient and their prognosis, the differences between groups of patients and the responses to new treatments. Objective: to determine the degree of lupus activity and accumulated damage in a group of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Method: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at the "M6rtires del 9 de Abril" University Hospital in Sagua la Grande, Villa Clara province, in the period from January 2013 to September 2018. The sample, selected in a non-probabilistic manner by criteria, was composed of 53 patients with a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus. Results: the mean score of the MEX-SLEDAI scale was 5.8 +/- 3.7 points (range 1-17 points). 37.7 % of the patients presented mild activity, only 1.9 % presented very severe activity and 17 % were in remission or without activity. The most affected areas of the SLICC / ACR index were musculoskeletal (17.0 %), cardiovascular (17.0 %) and cutaneous (15.1 %). Conclusions: the patients studied showed a predominance of mild to moderate disease activity according to MEX-SLEDAI. The presence of cardiovascular damage was higher than that reported by other studies. A significant correlation was found between the presence of lupus activity and accumulated damage.