title: Survival impact of autoantibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the frequency, the clinical and laboratory associations, and the impact on survival of anti-dsDNA, anti-Sm, anti-nRNP, anti-Ro, and anti-La in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical and laboratory features of 94 patients with SLE tested for anti-dsDNA, anti-nRNP, anti-Sm, anti-Ro and anti-La were studied. Survival analyses were performed by the Kaplan Meier method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Anti-Ro, anti-nRNP and anti-Sm were found with lower frequency in our patients compared to other reports. There was a higher frequency of anti-Sm (19.5 vs 10%, p = 0.0093) and anti-nRNP positivity (29.2 vs 7.5%, p = 0.006) among African American patients compared to Caucasian patients. No clinical or laboratory associations were found with any of the autoantibodies. Patients had a mean followup up 11.8 years. There were no protective or negative effects of the different autoantibodies on the probability of survival of the patients studied.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study failed to demonstrate the impact of the autoantibodies studied in the survival of our patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine (Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology), University of Alabama at Birmingham 35294.
authors.forename: P S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Gulko
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Reveille
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Koopman
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Burgard
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Bartolucci
authors.forename: G S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Alarcón
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000974:Antibodies, Antinuclear / Q000097:blood; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000097:blood*; D001324:Autoantigens; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008180:Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D017411:Ribonucleoproteins, Small Nuclear; D016019:Survival Analysis; D055517:snRNP Core Proteins
chemical_list: D000974:Antibodies, Antinuclear; D001323:Autoantibodies; D001324:Autoantigens; D017411:Ribonucleoproteins, Small Nuclear; C035356:SS-A antibodies; C035357:SS-B antibodies; D055517:snRNP Core Proteins