The Lupus Foundation of America has started an online platform where patients can provide information about their lives that researchers can use. It will help patients as well as researchers understand lupus better, the foundation said. The Research.forME Lupus Registry will collect patients’ observations about caregivers’ experiences as well. The information will…
Many systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) patients suffer from vocal disorder, or dysphonia, and should get voice therapy to improve the overall quality of their lives. So argues an article, “Voice disorder in systemic lupus erythematosus,” that recently appeared in the open-access journal PLOS One. Back in the 1950s, people with SLE…
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals’ product candidate voclosporin continues to show promise in patients with lupus nephritis (LN), according to the company. In addition to meeting complete and partial remission endpoints at 48 weeks of the trial, treatment with voclosporin also met secondary endpoints, such as reduction in speed of remission, disease…
A large Chinese cohort study has shown that anti-pentraxin 3 (PTX3) auto-antibodies were less prevalent in lupus nephritis patients with active disease than in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients without renal involvement, and was linked to less severe renal damage. These findings confirm the protective role of anti-PTX3 auto-antibodies in lupus nephritis. The…
A super-sensitive assay, capable of detecting minute amounts of the immune factor interferon-alpha, will aid physicians in diagnosing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) as well as other autoimmune conditions linked to the factor. Interferon-alpha is an extremely potent molecule, and because of this, it is only present in tiny amounts in…
Monthly intravenous Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide) treatment was linked to a lower accumulation of lupus nephritis kidney damage than other induction therapies investigated in a study of Japanese patients. Findings indicated that a complete response to treatment at three months predicted a lower damage accumulation, prompting researchers to suggest that a sustained…
Clinical trials with lupus patients should have a longer duration and a careful selection of patients based on certain parameters such as disease severity and treatment, recommends the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA), according to a news release. These recommendations are a result of the most recent study of…
Pediatric patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may have a higher prevalence of detectable dormant BK virus (BKV) than the general population. These are the findings from the study, “BK viruria and viremia in children with systemic lupus erythematosus,” recently published…
I have a chronic illness that I share with millions of people across the globe. And I am constantly apologizing for it. Unfamiliar to the general population, this chronic illness has been nicknamed an “invisible disease” because it is an auto-immune disorder that wreaks havoc internally. In fact, until…
Researchers have devised a blood test that predicts which blood relatives of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) — people who are at high risk of developing the disease — will actually develop it, even seven years before the disease declares itself. The blood test can be used to provide preventive…