Study Holds Promise for Predicting Lupus Progression
August 01, 2012Scientists could be a step closer to identifying and treating early cases of lupus, before the onset of organ-damaging illness. Research results published in the latest issue of Arthritis Research &Therapy further confirm that it could be possible in the future to profile individual disease characteristics that predict lupus. Researchers studied changes in the clinical and autoantibody profiles of a small group of patients over a period of more than two years and successfully identifieda subset of people who were progressing to greater organ involvement and more serious disease. “What we want to know is whether we can predict who should be treated,” said Dr. David R. Karp, one of the researchers and a member of the Lupus Foundation of America’s Medical-Scientific Advisory Council. Next steps will include expanding the sample size with the goal of developing “a known test or combination of tests, or something entirely novel,” he added.
Autoantibody profiling to follow evolution of lupus syndromes, by Nancy J. Olsen, Quan-Zhen Li, Jiexia Quan, Ling Wang, Azza Mutwally, David R. Karp et al. Arthritis Research & Therapy, July 27, 2012
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