Poor prognosis of end-stage renal disease in systemic lupus erythematosus: a cohort of Chinese patients Po-Tsang Lee1,2,3, Hua-Chang Fang1,2, Chien-Liang Chen1, Yee-Hsuan Chiou2,4,

We studied the clinical course of 26 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients who started regular dialysis at our hospital and whose stay exceeded a three-month duration in order to investigate the long-term prognosis in a Chinese cohort. Clinical and serological activities of lupus before and after dialysis were analysed. To compare the long-term survival rate, controls were set using 78 age-matched end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients who did not have SLE or diabetes mellitus and entered the chronic dialysis program at a similar period with SLE dialysis patients. There was a signi cant decrease in clinical lupus activity after starting regular dialysis (P < 0.05); however, the serologicalactivity remained the same. The ve-and ten-year survival rateswere signi cantly lower in the SLE patients (73 and 38 % in the SLE group versus 95 and 88 % in the non-SLE group, P < 0.05). SLE patients had a 4.3-times higher risk of death than non-SLE patients (P < 0.05, 95 % con dence interval, 1.2–15.2).Also, the deceased SLE patients had persistent lower serum levels of complement 3. SLE patients with ESRD remain clinically quiescent despite persistent serological abnormalities and have a worse prognosis than other uremia patients in the Chinese population. Lupus (2003) 12