OBJECTIVES The study investigated whether renal complications affected the efficacy and safety of tacrolimus combination therapy in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) during a maintenance phase. METHODS Fifty-seven patients with SLE (A: 30 cases with renal complication, B: 27 cases without renal complications) were included. The presence of renal complications was defined as pro...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the expression and clinical significance of trans-membrane MerTK (mMer) on circulating CD14+ monocytes/macrophages and soluble MerTK (sMer) levels in plasma in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHOD 108 SLE patients and 42 healthy controls were recruited in this study. The expression of mMer on the surfaces of CD14+ monocytes/macrophages was evaluated by flow cyto...

OBJECTIVE Several indices have been proposed to assess disease activity in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). Recent studies have showed a prevalence of flare between 28-35.3%, persistently active disease (PAD) between 46%-52% and serologically active clinically quiescent (SACQ) disease ranging from 6 to 15%. Our goal was to evaluate the flare, PAD and SACQ rate incidence in a co...

BACKGROUND Antioxidative capacity plays an important role in the severity of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which is characterized by autoantibodies. This study aimed to determine the relationship among autoantibody titers, antioxidative stress reserve, and severity of SLE. METHODS The autoantibody titers, clinical markers, antioxidant enzyme levels, and disease activity index (SLEDAI-2k...

OBJECTIVE Data about the survival rate of lupus patients on dialysis is controversial. The objective of this controlled prospective study was to report the survival of SLE patients undergoing dialysis and to analyse factors associated with mortality. METHODS Twenty dialysis centres were visited between May 2003 and February 2004. Disease activity was evaluated using the SLEDAI without the ren...

As very few large scale publications of invasive fungal infection (IFI) have been reported in lupus patients from individual medical centers, a retrospective study was performed from 1988 to 2009 in southern Taiwan. Demographic characteristics, clinical and laboratory data, and mycological examinations were analyzed. Twenty cases with IFI were identified in 2397 patients (0.83% incidence). Ther...

OBJECTIVE To examine the correlations between antinucleosome antibodies and anti-double-stranded (ds) DNA antibodies, complement (C) 3 and 4 levels, and clinical activities in SLE patients. METHODS Antinucleosome antibodies and anti-dsDNA antibodies were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). The levels of C3 and C4 were measured by nephelometry. Clinical activities were dete...

We sought to investigate the expression of Fas and FasL on T cell surface and caspase 8 involvement in T cell apoptosis promoted by serum IL-10 in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Cells and sera were obtained from 35 SLE patients. Apoptosis of T cells in patients with SLE was increased and associated with the SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI). Elevated expression of Fas and FasL o...