El propósito de este sitio es proporcionar información y recursos que ayudarán a aquellos diagnosticados con lupus mejor comprender y manejar esta enfermedad, al igual que ayudar a aquellos que vienen a nosotros para recibir información. Queremos proporcionarle los recursos educativos más actuales e informativos. Creemos que nuestros programas y servicios son una fuente de estímulo y poder. Nuestra meta es mejorar la calidad de vida para aquellos afligidos con lupus a través de educación, servicios, concienciación y trabajo comunitario, y apoyo a la investigación que resultará en mejores tratamientos y, algún día, en una cura.

Estamos en el proceso de traducir las páginas de este sitio y de poder ofrecerles más y más información y recursos en español muy pronto.

Support Groups - Our support groups are held throughout Nassau, Suffolk and Queens. A professional counselor who is also a person with lupus facilitates these groups. For a list of support group locations and times.

LupusLine Long Island- Queens - a free telephone peer counseling service for people with lupus and their families.

New Patient Orientation- Free classes for newly diagnosed people with lupus, their families and friends are held every other month at the chapter office. Please check the calendar for dates.

Education Day Programs - An all day education program on lupus that helps participants learn the medical facts about Lupus and how to live with this chronic illness. The group is limited in size so that experiences can be shared.

Doctor Referral List - Our Alliance provides a list of specialists in Rheumatology and dermatology who have indicated an interest in treating individuals with lupus. This list contains physicians in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Call our office and we will help you locate a doctor in your area.

If you would like to research a rheumatologist in your area go to:
http://www.rheumatology.org/directory

If you would like to research a dermatologist go to: http://www.aad.org

Newsletters -The Lupus News Link is mailed quarterly to people with lupus, their families, health care professionals, and clinics. The newsletter gives current information about lupus, research updates, volunteer opportunities, chapter events and more.

Seminars - An annual seminar, as well as periodic workshops, is specifically designed to meet the needs of the lupus community. Presentations are by both medical and business professionals. Topics are based on requests from members and participants. Dates, topics and locations appear in our newsletter and in our calendar.

Resource Library - Books on the various aspects of lupus are available for purchase. Members are also able to borrow books and videos from the Alliances lending library.

Financial Assistance Program - The Quality of Life program was developed in 2000 to help individuals with lupus meet needs that are not covered by other resources. Inquiries regarding the eligibility and availability of this program may contact our office at 1-800-850-9000. This program is limited in scope and as a source of last resort.

Speakers’ Bureau - Trained speakers are available to address professionals, schools and personal groups about lupus and the Lupus Alliance, Long Island/Queens Affiliate. No group is too large or too small. Call our office to schedule a speaker.

Kids Programs - Our “Let Kids be Kids” program is available to children 7-17 who have lupus or a family member with lupus. Day trips to fun places are planned, transportation included. Scholarships are also available to children afflicted with lupus who have special needs that cannot be covered by other means.

Spanish speaking staff

Wheelchairs Available. We now have 4 wheelchairs that have been donated to this office. If anyone has a need for one, they will be available for borrowing. Please contact the office to request one.

Phone: 516-783-3370 or1-800-850-9000

Fax: 516-826-2058
Email: info@lupusli.org, info@lupusliqueens.org

A copy of our annual report may be obtained, upon request, from the Lupus Alliance or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York New York 10027. For a copy of our 990 and financial information go to www.guidestar.org

Friday 9:30AM - 4:00 PM

Yahoo! BuzzHuman Genome Sciences ( HGSI - news - people )' drug belimumab has a big lead. It aced two final-stage trials in lupus patients last year and could reach the market by the end of the year. While not a cure, the drug could help a significant minority of the 1.5 million Americans (mostly women) suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus. Belimumab's global sales could hit $3 billion by 2014, predicts Lazard Capital Markets analyst Terence Flynn.

GlaxoSmithkline will comarket the drug and get half the sales. Even if belimumab fizzles financially, the successful trials provide a road map for Roche ( RHHBY.PK - news - people ), Amgen ( AMGN - news - people ) and others testing lupus drugs. "I'm totally excited," says UC, San Diego lupus expert Kenneth Kalunian. "This is a stepping stone that will get us to something better."

Belimumab is an antibody against a protein that HGS researchers stumbled upon in 1997 as they sifted through numerous new proteins. This protein prompts the growth of antibody-producing cells called B-lymphocytes. Lupus patients have too much of it.

Proving belimumab worked against lupus was anything but easy. Results from an efficacy trial in 2005 were murky. The drug helped only a subset of patients, those with abnormal levels of antibodies at the time of enrollment in the trial. Like everything else in lupus, these antibody levels wax and wane over time. So HGS Vice President William Freimuth designed two bigger trials that restricted enrollment to this group. HGS created a new index that measures various lupus symptoms.

While the two HGS trials were under way, lupus trials fizzled at several other companies. Bristol-Myers Squibb ( BMY - news - people )'s arthritis drug, Orencia, didn't help lupus patients in one 2008 trial; Genentech ( DNA - news - people )'s lymphoma drug, Rituxan, also bombed in a lupus trial that year. Wall Street expected belimumab to fail, too. HGS shares, which hit a low of 45 cents in March 2009, skyrocketed when the first positive trial was reported in July. They are now at $30.

Melanie Labrecque has been hospitalized 14 times since developing lupus in 1993. Severe blood vessel inflammation often covered her legs in dark rashes and sometimes made it impossible to walk. "They would swell so badly that it looked like someone bludgeoned them," says the 48-year-old San Pedro, Calif. resident. She enrolled in one of the belimumab trials in 2008, and the swelling has mostly gone away. She still has nerve damage in her legs and other symptoms. Still, "I've gotten some of my life back," she says.

In the trial Labrecque was in, 43% of those on the drug saw significant symptom improvements, versus 34% of those on a placebo. The other trial found a slightly larger effect. "It won't be a cure-all," admits Labrecque's doctor, Los Angeles rheumatologist Daniel Wallace. Belimumab's side effects seem mild so far, but detailed trial data have not been published in a journal. In 2008 Merck ( MRK - news - people ) KGAA and ZymoGenetics ( ZGEN - news - people ) halted a trial of their rival lupus drug, atacicept, because of high infection rates; another trial continues. It's a tricky matter to suppress the immune system's destructive excesses without also hurting its ability to combat bacteria and viruses.

Researchers hope belimumab will be the first in an antilupus arsenal. Last August the Belgian drug company UCB and partner Immunomedics ( IMMU - news - people ) announced promising early results for epratuzumab, which quiets B-cell activity. Bristol-Myers Squibb is also giving Orencia another shot, focusing on whether the drug can stop lupus from causing kidney damage. Results are due late this year.

"The standard treatment for lupus kidney disease is to block inflammation," said Lionel Ivashkiv, M.D., associate chief scientific officer at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. "This study suggests you might want to target the macrophages, a specific type of white blood cell involved in the disease."

For years, clinicians have known that kidney damage occurs in many patients with lupus, and they have known how the disease triggers the start of kidney disease. Little has been known, however, about one type of lupus kidney disease, proliferative crescentic disease that is associated with adverse outcomes and decreased survival. This type of kidney disease is characterized by abnormal proliferation (growth) of kidney cells that leads to irreversible damage to internal kidney structures that help filter waste and fluids from the blood. This advanced kidney disease leads to kidney failure and it is an important cause of the need for dialysis and transplantation in lupus.

Previous studies have suggested that type I interferons are implicated in promoting the autoimmunity associated with lupus. "We were interested in understanding whether these interferons might work directly on the kidney," Dr. Ivashkiv said. "There is a lot of evidence that the interferons work on the immune system and we wanted to know how interferons affect kidney disease."

To investigate, researchers used a mouse model of lupus. By increasing interferon production, they caused advanced kidney disease to occur in the mice rapidly. "The mice are a strain that will get nephritis over time, but we injected the mice at the very onset of the disease thus causing a very accelerated pattern, so that the mice have complete renal failure in two to four weeks," Dr. Ivashkiv said. They then examined the changes that occurred during the development of the advanced kidney disease by drawing blood samples from the mice, and analyzing their kidneys, and analyzing the macrophages to determine their type, among other experiments.

In the type of kidney disease they were investigating, it has long been known that epithelial cells proliferating out of control form a kind of crescent. These crescent cells compress the glomerulus, the basic filtration unit of the kidney, and prevent it from functioning.

In their experiments, the investigators found that the development of these crescents was associated with infiltrating kidney macrophages that produced growth factors, and the infiltration of these was spurred by interferon type I. They also found that the type of macrophages involved were not the most common type of inflammatory macrophages but so called "alternatively activated macrophages" that are involved in wound healing and induce the proliferation of cells. This is what causes the proliferation and crescentic lesions in the kidney disease.

"This study suggests a new drug target. If you could understand how to target the macrophages and inhibit them or the growth factors that they produce, this might be a different approach to therapy," Dr. Ivashkiv said. "This is an emerging area. Prior to this study, a role of macrophages had just been identified in lupus kidney disease, and this is the first study showing alternatively activated macrophages are involved in proliferative crescentic disease."

The study was conducted by Dr. Lionel Ivashkiv and Dr. Antigoni Triantafyllopoulou, a rheumatology fellow at Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr. Anne Davidson, an expert in lupus models from the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, N.Y., was a key collaborator. Other authors of the study are Claus-Werner Franzke, Giorgio Perino, and George D. Kalliolias from Hospital for Special Surgery; Surya V. Seshan from Weill Cornell Medical College, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, New York; Meera Ramanujam from the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Nico van Rooijen from Vrije Universiteit Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

About Hospital for Special Surgery

Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a world leader in orthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation. HSS is nationally ranked No. 2 in orthopedics, No. 3 in rheumatology and No. 24 in neurology by U.S. News & World Report (2009), and has received Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. In 2008 and 2007, HSS was a recipient of the HealthGrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award. A member of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College, HSS provides orthopedic and rheumatologic patient care at New York-Presbyterian Hospital at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center. All Hospital for Special Surgery medical staff are on the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical College. The hospital's research division is internationally recognized as a leader in the investigation of musculoskeletal and autoimmune diseases.

Source: Hospital for Special Surgery

“There is a lot of encouraging information in here for the 1.5 million Americans with lupus,” said Lupus Research Institute (LRI) President Margaret G. Dowd at the meeting.

HGS first reported on the clinical trial (BLISS-52) results this summer. If findings from the longer “BLISS-76” trial due in November are positive as well, the company can apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for drug approval in 2010—possibly the first drug approval for lupus in more than 50 years.

Specifics on effectiveness and safety

"The BLISS-52 Phase 3 results presented at ACR demonstrated that the efficacy of treatment with belimumab plus standard of care was superior to that of placebo [dummy drug] plus standard of care," explained David C. Stump, MD, executive vice president of research and development at HGS in a statement. "These data were statistically significant and were strongly supported across multiple measures of clinical effect and multiple time-points.”

The company shared these and other trial details on belimumab’s ability to significantly reduce lupus disease activity and the rate of lupus flares, as well as to lower the rate of flares and significantly delay the length of time to the first flare.

“Belimumab’s apparent capacity to lower the use of the dreaded corticosteroid, prednisone, is also notable,” said Dowd, who has heard from the thousands of LRI members that lessening the dosage of this often lifesaving but complication-ridden medicine is a priority. In the trial, a greater percentage of participants taking belimumab were able to reduce their prednisone use than those taking the placebo.

LRI Program Director Catherine Anastasia noted that the significant reductions in fatigue with belimumab would also come as particularly welcome news. “The fatigue of lupus can be draining and debilitating. A route out of the exhaustion would make a big difference in quality of life for so many.”

The company additionally reported that people taking belimumab generally tolerated the drug well.

Key trial design

“This is the first drug shown to be effective in ameliorating the signs and symptoms of lupus in decades,” said Daniel J. Wallace, MD, clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “It represents a breakthrough for finally utilizing a methodology that enables researchers to demonstrate disease improvement. This will benefit lupus patients and their doctors.”

BLISS-52 and BLISS-76 are the largest clinical trials ever conducted in people with lupus.

Dowd and other LRI representatives are among the thousands of attendees—physicians, health professionals, and scientists—at the Philadelphia meeting designed to advance rheumatology through programs of education, research, advocacy and practice support.

"Just like in mice, in humans, if you don't clear the dying cells, then that predisposes you to lupus," said Lata Mukundan, PhD, a Stanford research associate and one of the first authors of the study to be published online in Nature Medicine Oct. 18. "If you look at patients with lupus, they have an inability to clear those dead cells."

Added Ajay Chawla, MD, PhD, assistant professor of endocrinology and senior author of the study: "The clearing away of dying cells is important. If they're not cleared away, they can provide antigens against ourselves, leading to development of autoimmunity."

Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the body's system attacks its own cells. The chronic inflammation causes symptoms that can resemble other types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases, affecting the skin, heart, lungs, kidneys, joints and nervous system. The cause is unknown.

Mukundan, Chawla and their colleagues have uncovered one of the pathways by which macrophages sense and silently dispose of these dying cells - a naturally-occurring process not previously understood - by conducting lab experiments in vitro with mouse and human macrophages, as well as in genetically engineered mice.

Researchers hypothesized that a molecule in the nucleus of cells called PPAR-delta plays a pivotal role in orchestrating the timely disposal of dying cells by macrophages, the white blood cells that swallow and digest cellular debris and pathogens, triggering other immune cells to aid in the response to a pathogen.

"We wanted to know, if you took a mouse and only deleted PPAR-delta from its macrophages, is that sufficient to cause an autoimmune disease?" Chawla said. "Apparently it is."

To test their theory, researchers bred genetically engineered mice that were missing the PPAR-delta molecule in their macrophages, and then injected them with apoptotic (dying) cells. It turned out that simply missing the PPAR-delta molecule caused a lupuslike autoimmune kidney disorder in mice.

Drugs that activate PPAR-delta have been identified and are in clinical trials for treatment of high blood cholesterol and other lipid disorders. Thus, the direct involvement of PPAR-delta in suppressing autoantibody production and maintaining the body's tolerance to itself raises the possibility that these molecules that activate PPAR-delta can be used to treat patients with lupus.

The study pinpoints how PPAR-delta works in macrophages. When the macrophages eat dying cells, certain genes get turned on in these cells, triggering further consumption of more dying cells and aiding in their clearance.

First, PPAR-delta aids in the recognition of the dying cell by regulating the production of key proteins called opsonins. These proteins recognize the "eat me" signals released by the dying cells. In addition, PPAR-delta also prevents the immune system from mounting an inflammatory response to the dying cell and thus functions in the safe disposal of the dying cells. In the absence of PPAR-delta, mice have an accumulation of dead cells that over time delivers a danger signal to the immune system, leading to inflammation and tissue damage.

"The dying cells are a bunch of modified lipids," Chawla noted.

When the macrophages eat the dying cells it doubles their content of lipids. The team showed in additional experiments in the lab that the lipids worked as a signal to tell the macrophages they needed to eat more dying cells. "These receptors allow the macrophages to turn on the genes for better clearing in the body," Chawla said.

Other Stanford contributors to the study are: co-first authors Justin Odegaard, MD, a resident in pathology, and Christine Morel, former research assistant, who is now a graduate student at Baylor University in Texas; Julia Mwangi, endocrinology research assistant; Jose Heredia, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar; MD/PhD student Roberto Ricardo-Gonzalez; Sharon Goh, an immunology graduate student; Alex Red Eagle, an MD/PhD genetics student; Jennifer Awakuni, former undergraduate student; Lawrence Steinman, MD, the George A. Zimmermann Professor and professor of neurology; and Sara Michie, MD, professor of pathology. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Rita Allen Foundation and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Support was also provided by the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program, the American Heart Association, Dean's Fellowship and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellows.

Source:
Tracie White
Stanford University Medical Center

Launched in March 2009, the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Counseling Program for Lupus Patients helps lupus patients think beyond their primary condition and take steps for future wellness. To assess the impact of the program, patients were given satisfaction surveys at the end of their initial visit and asked to rate aspects of the program, including quality of counseling and educational materials, likelihood of recommending the program to others, and improvement in the patient's knowledge about cardiovascular risk. Overall, the results of the survey showed that patients were well satisfied with the free counseling program.

"Out of 27 patients, 25 - or 93 percent - have filled out the satisfaction survey," said Virginia Haiduc, M.D, the program's coordinator. "We found that over half of those patients were not aware that lupus was a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This program educates them about that risk and then helps them begin to decrease other risk factors that they have control over, such as poor diet and lack of physical activity."

Monica Richey, R.N., ANP-BC/GNP-M.S., the program nurse, feels that the counseling not only helps lupus patients change their behaviors and lifestyle, but also extends to those around them. "One young woman who came to our program was 24 years old, morbidly obese and had three kids," Richey said. "The next time she came back, she brought her kids because they were all upset with me. She had gone home and thrown out all the soda, cookies and chips. She was helping the whole family make a change to a healthier lifestyle."

Based on their chart and information gained during the appointment, patients may also be referred to a nutritionist or a physical therapist to help them make changes that will lower their risk for cardiovascular disease. Sotiria Tzakas, M.S., R.D., CDN, from the Nutrition Department and Josephine Park, MSPT, OCS, from the Rehabilitation Department are consultants for the program and co-authors of the abstract being presented.

The authors say that their study highlights that programs designed to help patients understand the cardiovascular risks associated with lupus are very well received by patients. The counseling helps patients increase their knowledge and begin to make behavior changes.

"Physicians should recognize that patients do not understand their cardiovascular risk," said Dr. Erkan. "Educating them about these risks should be considered a part of standard lupus care. We would encourage other hospitals to create similar programs."

As the program continues, Drs. Erkan and Haiduc will also analyze clinical factors to determine whether, in addition to behavioral change, there is a decrease in the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in the patients who have undergone counseling.

The counseling program is jointly sponsored by Hospital for Special Surgery and the New York Community Trust. The program is one of the patient education and counseling programs within the new Mary Kirkland Center for Lupus Care, which also provides lupus patients with comprehensive, multidisciplinary assessments, support programs and access to clinical trials.

Source:
Phyllis Fisher
Hospital for Special Surgery

"Our results suggest that lupus anticoagulant is a major risk factor for arterial thrombotic events in young women, and the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors increases this risk even further," the researchers said. "Screening for lupus anticoagulant in young women with ischemic stroke seems to be warranted."

Antiphospholipid syndrome is an autoimmune disease found mainly in young women, and it is a risk factor for arterial thrombosis. Diagnosis typically occurs after young women suffer a thrombotic event and antiphospholipid antibodies are subsequently tested.

To determine whether specific antiphospholipid antibody subpopulations -- lupus anticoagulant, anticardiolipin, anti-B2-glycoprotein I, and antiprothrombin antibodies -- affect the risk of myocardial infarction or ischemic stroke in young women, the researchers conducted the case-control Risk of Arterial Thrombosis in Relation to Oral Contraceptives (RATIO) Study.

The researchers included women under 50 who were admitted to one of 16 medical centers with a first ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction between January 1990 and October 1995, as well as an additional population of young women who'd had experienced such events at the University Medical Centre Utrecht between 1996 and 2001.

A total of 175 women with ischemic stroke, 203 with myocardial infarction, and 628 healthy controls were included.

Information on additional cardiovascular risk factors -- such as oral contraceptive use, smoking, and hypertension -- were assessed via questionnaire, and blood samples were taken between 1998 and 2002 to measure antiphospholipid profiles.

Lupus anticoagulant was found in 17% of patients with ischemic stroke, 3% of patients with myocardial infarction, and 0.6% of controls.

Women with the antibody had a five-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction, but a 43-fold increased risk of ischemic stroke (95% CI 1.4 to 20.8 and 95% CI 12.2 to 152, respectively).

Why the effect of lupus anticoagulant is more pronounced for ischemic stroke than for myocardial infarction "remains to be established," the researchers said.

The relationships were intensified by additional cardiovascular risk factors.

The odds ratio for myocardial infarction increased to 21.6 for those who also used oral contraceptives and to 33.7 for those who smoked (95% CI 1.9 to 242.0 and 95% CI 6.0 to 189.0, respectively).

The odds ratio for an ischemic stroke jumped to 201 among those on the pill and to 87 for those who smoked (95% CI 22.1 to 1,828 and 95% CI 14.5 to 523, respectively).

Women who had another antiphospholipid syndrome antibody -- anti-B2-glycoprotein I -- had a 2.3-fold increased risk of ischemic stroke (95% CI 1.4 to 3.7), but their risk of myocardial infarction was not increased (OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.5 to 1.6).

Neither anticardiolipin nor antiprothrombin antibodies affected the risk of myocardial infarction or ischemic stroke, the researchers said.

The study was limited by the potential for recall bias in questionnaires, and possible confounding by vitamin K antagonists, which could interfere with the detection of lupus anticoagulant.

Still, the researchers said that "all the prothrombotic effects of antiphospholipid antibodies might be responsible for the increased risk of arterial thrombosis described in this study."

In an accompanying editorial, Kathryn Kirchoff-Torres, MD, and Steven R. Levine, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, pointed out a potential limitation of the study.

"Serum was sampled for aPL only once, up to a decade after the thrombotic event. The frequency of positive laboratory test results for aPL increases with age, and aPL positivity has been associated with infection, malignancy, conventional vascular risk factors, and exposure to certain medication," they noted.

They said some aPL-positive patients in the study by Urbanus and colleagues might not, therefore, have been aPL-positive at the time of the thrombotic event, and vice versa, making any claims of causality speculative.

However, they said the study "provides important evidence for a prothrombotic synergistic effect between oral contraceptives, cigarette smoking, and lupus anticoagulant in young women."

The report adds further evidence "for lupus anticoagulant and anti-B2-glycoprotein I as arterial thrombotic risk factors," they wrote. "More importantly, [it] elucidates that young women with [antiphospholipid syndrome] should be informed about the serious risks of cigarette smoking and use of oral contraceptives."

They said future directions for research include investigating how emerging antiphospholipid antibodies such as antiprothrombin, antiphosphatidylserine, and antiannexin A5 affect thrombotic risk.

Researchers should also establish whether the risks of a portfolio of multiple coexistent aPL are additive, the Mount Sinai doctors said.

The study was supported by the Netherlands Heart Foundation and the Leducq Foundation in Paris.

The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

Primary source: The Lancet Neurology
Source reference:
Urbanus RT, et al "Antiphospholipid antibodies and risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke in young women in the RATIO study: a case-control study" Lancet Neurol 2009; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(09)70239-X.

Additional source: The Lancet Neurology
Source reference:
Kirchoff-Torres K, Levine SR "Antiphospholipid antibodies: pinning risk on a moving target" Lancet Neurol 2009; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(09)70263-7.

Methods: Multicenter cohorts of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and controls were recruited for cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of urinary TWEAK (uTWEAK) and/or serum TWEAK (sTWEAK) levels as potential biomarkers of LN. The performance of TWEAK as a biomarker for nephritis was compared to routinely used laboratory tests in lupus patients, including anti-double stranded DNA antibodies and levels of C3 and C4.

Results: uTWEAK levels were significantly higher in LN patients than in non-LN SLE patients and other disease control groups (P=0.039).

Furthermore, uTWEAK was better at distinguishing between LN and non-LN SLE patients than anti-DNA antibodies and complement levels, while high uTWEAK levels predicted LN in SLE patients with odds ratio of 7.36 (95% CI: 2.25 to 24.07; P=0.001). uTWEAK levels peaked during LN flares, and were significantly higher during the flare than at 4 and 6 months prior or following the flare event.

A linear mixed-effects model showed a significant association between uTWEAK levels in SLE patients and their disease activity over time (P=0.008). sTWEAK levels, however, were not found to correlate with the presence of LN or the degree of nephritis activity.

Conclusions: High uTWEAK levels are indicative of LN, as opposed to non-LN SLE and other healthy and disease control populations, and reflect renal disease activity in longitudinal followup.

Thus, our study further supports a role for TWEAK in the pathogenesis of LN, and provides strong evidence for uTWEAK as a candidate clinical biomarker for LN.

Author: Noa SchwartzTamar RubinsteinLinda BurklyChristopher CollinsIrene BlancoLihe SuBernard HojailiMeggan MackayCynthia AranowWilliam StohlBrad RovinJennifer MichaelsonChaim Putterman
Credits/Source: Arthritis Research &Therapy 2009, 11:R143