Active clinical trials for "Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic"

Study to examine the role of ITGAM molecule in normal control subjects with known genetic variation in the ITGAM gene.

This protocol tests whether changes in BLyS or IFN can be detected in a normal immune response to a vaccine and, if so, whether the response differs between those with lupus and healthy controls.

The Martinique island (French West-Indies) is an area of high prevalence and incidence for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), respectively 64,2/ 100000 and 4,7/ 100000. In many cases, this disease concerns Afro Caribbean women, whose auto-antibodies are excessively high; also, organic damages are frequent. The disease can be fatal. Studies have shown that some cytotoxic auto-antibodies may have a responsibility in the hydrolysing of DNA. This study will focus on the DNA activity and also on the overwhelm hydrolase activity dealing with the Lupus disease in order to measure the link between the disease activity and the catalytic activity. Patients concerned by this study will be Martinique people.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is severe, chronic, disabling autoimmune disease that significantly affects health status and quality of life. Since the disease occurs most often in young to middle-aged adults, SLE can also affect work and disability. However, there is currently little information on work-related disability from longitudinal, population-based studies of SLE. Participants were enrolled into the Carolina Lupus Study between February, 1997 and July 1999. We plan to conduct two telephone contacts with patients and one telephone contact with controls in a follow-up study to be conducted in 2001. The first patient contact will follow an introductory letter that describes the follow-up study. This letter provides participants the opportunity (via a toll-free phone number) to decline further contact about this study. The first patient contact will be a short (5 minute) interview in which we determine their current source of lupus-related medical care, timing of next expected visit, and update contact information. The second contact will involve a 60-minute telephone interview covering medical care utilization, current health status (including a patient-administered measure of lupus activity), work and disability issues, psychosocial attributes (e.g. helplessness, social support, daily stressors including race-related issues), and changes in exposures since the initial interview. We will attempt to schedule the patients' interviews within 3 months before or after the patient sees his or her own physician for SLE-related evaluation or treatment. A short (15 minutes or less) telephone interview will be conducted with controls focusing on current health, work status, and daily stresso. Ddisease damage will be assessed using the System Lupus international Collaborating Clinics (SLICC)/American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Damage Index, a standardized and validated instrument that is completed by the patient's physician. We will seek death certificates for patients and controls who have died in order to obtain cause of death information. Next-of-kin information from death certificates will not be used. This study will allow up to determine the feasibility of obtaining reliable data on disease damage from more than 50 physicians involved in the treatment of patients in the Carolina Lupus Study. This developmental work is a necessary foundation for any additional follow-up studies of the Carolina Lupus Study cohort. We will also be able to examine associations with disability in patients and in controls and to examine the contribution of various factors to the increased disease severity experience by African-American SLE patients.

OBJECTIVES: I. Continue yearly ascertainment visits of all patients of the established Lupus in Minority Populations: Nature vs Nurture (LUMINA) study cohort. II. Recruit into the LUMINA cohort newly diagnosed patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). III. Determine the impact of additional major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and non-MHC genetic factors not previously examined, specifically tumor necrosis factor, mannose binding protein, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, and bcl-2, on the course and outcome of SLE. IV. Refine the assessment of those clinical and behavioral-cultural factors found to be important predictors of disease activity, damage, and functioning, thus far in these patients. V. Determine the relationships among disease activity, disease damage, and physical and mental functioning in these patients as the SLE progresses and the factors that predict them.

This study evaluates the expression of the neonatal fc receptor (FcRn) in white blood cells and antigen-presenting cells (APC) in active lupus patients compared to inactive lupus patients and control to investigate if it's upregulated or not.

Study aims to evaluate serum galectin-9 in systemic lupus erythematosus patients and determine it's correlation with overall disease process

This study series consists of four related studies and aims to explore and describe many important elements of alopecia areata over three key areas: (1) the current epidemiology of alopecia areata, (2) the prevalence and incidence of psychiatric co-morbidities in people with alopecia areata, (3) the prevalence and incidence of autoimmune and atopic conditions in people with alopecia areata, and (4) the incidence of common infections in people with alopecia areata.

This research project has the overall objective to investigate the direction of the associations between illness perceptions, their influencing factors and health-related outcomes. Moreover, the investigators want to look at the direction of the associations between illness perceptions and health related outcomes such as psychological and physical functioning in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). The investigators want to know whether the outcome variables anxiety, depression, physical (dis) functioning are influenced by illness perceptions or vice versa. Not only the patients' illness perceptions but also the illness perceptions of the General Practitioners (GP) and rheumatologists will be investigated. The researchers want to know if the doctors' perceptions have an impact on the physical and psychological functioning of the patient or vice versa. Much research in the field of illness perceptions is cross-sectional in nature which means that the direction of the relationships between variables is not known.

The key of this prospective study is to identify a potentially increased cardiovascular risk in patients with systemic Lupus erythematodes, with and without renal affection. Three groups of patients will be compared.