Cumulated organ damage is associated with arterial stiffness in women with systemic lupus erythematosus irrespective of renal function.

Objective: To determine whether there is an association between cumulated organ damage and arterial stiffness in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with normal renal function and without renal damage.

Methods: Eighty-eight SLE women with normal renal function and without renal damage, and 102 sex- and age-matched controls with no history of coronary heart disease or peripheral arterial disease were studied. Cumulated organ damage and arterial stiffness were measured using the SLICC/ACR Damage Index (SDI) and pulse wave velocity (PWV), respectively. Patients were categorised as with (SDI ≥1) or without cumulated organ damage (SDI=0) and bivariate analyses were performed to compare both groups. A multivariate logistic regression was carried out to analyse the independent factors associated with cumulated organ damage. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to investigate the correlation between SDI and PWV, adjusted for appropriate confounders.

Results: PWV was significantly higher in patients with respect to controls (p=0.007). Also, patients with SDI ≥1 had significantly higher PWV than those with SDI=0 (p=0.007). In the multivariate analysis, cumulated organ damage was significantly associated with PWV (p=0.006) and obesity (p=0.003). Furthermore, PWV correlated with SDI after adjustment for age, SLE duration, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, renal function, prednisone and homocysteine (r=0.283, p=0.011). Patients with increased PWV were more likely to have organ damage (SDI ≥1) than those with normal PWV (67% vs. 36%, p=0.023).

Conclusions: Cumulated organ damage was found to be independently associated with the arterial stiffness in SLE women without renal involvement.