Clinical significance of anticardiolipin antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus

الملخص EN

Material & Methods: This study was performed on 40 female patients who used to suffer of SLE.

They were divided into two groups according to the serum level of IgG and IgM anticardiolipin antibodies (ACL).

The positivity of anticardiolipin antibodies was 50%.

Therefore Group I included 20 patients with positive anticardiolipin antibodies and group II included 20 patients with negative anticardiolipin antibodies.

Results: When we compared the data of both groups, we found a significant elevation in the serum level of LDL (p=0.03), cholesterol (p=0.0118) and a highly significant elevation in the serum level of triglycerides (p-0.001) in Group I.

There was no significant difference in the other parameters measured between the two groups.

Anticardiolipin antibodies levels did not correlate with disease activity or clinical features of the disease.

Conclusion: Further studies are needed to determine the effect of persistent anticardiolipin positivity.