Lupus Surveillance: Preliminary Results Show Strong Ethnic Differences

Estimates on the prevalence of systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) in the US vary widely. To remedy that situation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supported four health departments and the Indian Health Service in efforts to get better data.

Reporting on results of that CDC-aided initiative in a New York City (meaning Manhattan) survey, researchers from NYU Langone and colleagues at other institutions are presenting an abstract Nov. 9 at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Peter Izmirly and colleagues identified 75,000 SLE patients then used two sets of criteria to determine prevalence and incidence in New York County. They found the prevalence was 63.2 per 1000,000 population and the incidence was 4.3.

The overall prevalence and incident rates were 10 times higher in women than men. The highest prevalence of SLE was among black women (195.3) followed by Hispanic women (132.5) Asian women (89.5) and white women (61.9).

Those numbers were based on ACR criteria.

Using Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics criteria, the prevalence was 70.4 per 100,000 and the incidence was 5.5.

Their data "revealed substantial gender, ethnic and racial disparities among Manhattan residents," the team wrote in their abstract.