RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Dr. Tselios, <em>et al</em>, reply
JF The Journal of Rheumatology
JO J Rheumatol
FD The Journal of Rheumatology
SP jrheum.190255
DO 10.3899/jrheum.190255
A1 Konstantinos Tselios
A1 Dafna D.  Gladman
A1 Paula Harvey
A1 Shadi Akhtari
A1 Jiandong Su
A1 Murray B.  Urowitz
YR 2019
UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2019/06/24/jrheum.190255.abstract
AB We thank De Luca and colleagues1 for their interest in our paper2. We agree with the authors that the pathophysiologic mechanisms for abnormal cardiac biomarkers in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are many and may include both inflammatory and ischemic causes among others. We also agree that these conditions may present subclinically. In the paper, we reported that even in the patients who presented with no symptoms at all, further investigations (instigated by the incidental finding of abnormal cardiac biomarkers) revealed myocarditis (n = 1), coronary artery disease (n = 1), uncontrolled systemic hypertension (n = 1), or even pulmonary hypertension (n = 2).