Outcome in African-American children of neuropsychiatric lupus and lupus nephritis

Abstract.

The present study reviews the course of lupus nephritis (LN) with the added complication of neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) in a predominantly African-American population in order to identify the risk factors accounting for the increased morbidity and mortality in African-American children. Previous studies, including those at our center, have demonstrated the poor prognosis for African-American children with LN. A possible factor is the involvement of the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in a heightened risk of morbidity, although to date there are no reports suggesting an association between NPSLE and patient and renal survival in children with lupus nephritis. To this end, we retrospectively analyzed charts of 72 children with lupus nephritis seen at our center from 1965 to 1999. These 72 patients formed two groups, with group 1 consisting of patients with lupus nephritis and NP manifestations and group 2 only lupus nephritis. We then examined various demographic factors such as age, sex and race along with the histopathologic class of lupus nephritis, occurrence of hypertension, incidence of end stage renal disease (ESRD), time to ESRD and mortality in both groups with the aid of Fisher’s exact t-test and the chi-square test. Briefly, the results revealed significantly higher class III or IV histopathologic lesions on biopsy, incidence of hypertension, progression to ESRD and mortality in children with NPSLE and LN (group 1) compared to LN alone (group 2) in spite of aggressive immunosuppressive therapy. In conclusion, we report that NPSLE with LN is associated with an increased rate of ESRD and mortality in our predominantly African-American children.