LAUSR

SLE is a chronic inflammatory immunologic abnormalities disease which produce a number of antinuclear antibodies. The SLE renal involvement is clinically apparent in approximately 50% patients (Norby et al., 2017). It is very important to introduce the prompt treatment to prevent the permanent end stage renal disease.This study aimed to identify the serum biomarkers that correlate with pretreatment disease activity in patients with SLE nephropathy and predict the treatment outcome so that we may identify the unresponsive cases and switch to the other biologic agents like anti-TWEAK monoclonal antibody in the future.This was a hospital-based prospective analytical study conducted from January 2018 to November 2019 in Rheumatology Department, Yangon Specialty Hospital. 88 SLE nephropathy patients with 24-hour urinary protein above 0.5g/day planned to have 6 months course of IV cyclophosphamide were enrolled. The paired serum sample of each patient was analyzed by ELISA twice to get the mean serum TWEAK value. Pretreatment SLE disease activity was assessed by the SLEDAI 2k. After the completion of 6 months of aggressive treatment, the treatment response was assessed by measuring the 24 hour urinary protein.Among the 88 patients, 63 patients (71.6%) had completed total 6-months course and 25 patients (28.4%) had not completed:11 patients (12.5%) expired and 2 patients (2.27%) had been changed to other DMARD and 12 patients (13.63%) did not attend the follow up clinic. The mean serum TWEAK level was 856 ± 77 pg/ml in 88 patients. According to the range of serum TWEAK level, most of the patients had serum TWEAK level of 601-900 pg/ml (53.4% of the study population). There was positive correlation between pre-treatment SLEDAI 2k score and pretreatment serum TWEAK level (r=0.464 and P <0.001). When the SLEDAI 2k score was grouped into mild, moderate, high and very high disease activity, the serum TWEAK level also had positive association with the different levels of disease activity (p<0.001). Among 63 treatment completed patients, 55 patients (87.3%) were the treatment responders but 8 patients (12.7%) were treatment non-responders. There was significant difference in the pretreatment SLEDAI 2k in terms of disease activity between treatment responder and treatment non-responder (p<0.001). There was significant difference in the pretreatment SLEDAI 2k in terms of reduction in 24-hours urinary protein between treatment responder and treatment non-responder (p<0.001). There was no significant difference in the level of pretreatment serum TWEAK level between treatment responders and treatment non responders (p=1.000). There was also no significant difference in the pretreatment serum TWEAK level between treatment responders and treatment non-responders in terms of reduction in 24 hours urinary protein (p=0.804).Although the pretreatment serum TWEAK level had a positive correlation with pretreatment disease activity of SLEDAI 2k, it did not reflect the outcome of the responsiveness to the intensive therapy.[1]Norby, et al (2017) Outcome in biopsy-proven lupus nephritis: evaluation of biopsies from the Norwegian kidney biopsy registry.Lupus; 26:88Prof.Chit Soe, Prof.Hlaing Mya WinNone declared