• Wen-Gen Li, Zhi-Zhong Ye, Zhi-Hua Yin, and Ke Zhang.
• Department of Rheumatology, Meizhou People's Hospital, Meizhou, Guangdong, China.
• Int J Rheum Dis. 2017 Jan 1; 20 (1): 68-75.

AimThe purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in Hakka populations.MethodsWe studied the demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics in a cohort of 552 SLE patients diagnosed at the Rheumatology Department in MeiZhou People's Hospital from January 2008 to December 2012. There were 495 women and 57 men (8.7 : 1) with a mean age of 35.3 years (range 12-78 years). The mean age at disease onset and the mean disease duration were 31.8 ± 14.4 years and 3.3 ± 2.8 years, respectively.ResultsThe most common clinical manifestations were arthritis (61.6%), followed by malar rash (52.7%), photosensitivity (22.8%), mouth ulcers (17.0%) and discoid lupus (14.7%). The prevalence was 46.7% for nephritis (by biopsy), 18.3% for pleuritis, 15.6% for pericarditis and 4.9% for neuropsychiatric manifestations. The most common hematological manifestations were anemia (63.8%), followed by leucopenia (29.0%) and thrombocytopenia (14.9%). Antinuclear antibodies were detected in 99.8% of patients, followed by anti-double-stranded DNA (81.3%), anti-SSA (Sjögren's syndrome antigen A)/Ro (58.7%), anti-ribonucleoprotein (36.8%), anti-Sm (35.7%), and anti-SSB/La (15.0%). Anti-cardiolipin immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM were detected in 18.3% and 14.1% of patients, respectively. Active disease and infections were the two major causes of death.ConclusionThe clinical and immunological characteristics of the SLE patients in our study place our population in the middle of the spectrum between other Asian and Caucasian populations.© 2015 Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

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