This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
SLE leads autoimmune diseases for lost life years among young women
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
CHICAGO — Systemic lupus erythematosus is the number one cause among autoimmune diseases of lost potential life years in women aged 15 to 24 years, and is among the leading causes of death in general in women aged 15 to 44 years, according to data presented by Ram R. Singh, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The relative and true disease burden for SLE are not understood,” Singh told attendees at the at the ACR/ARHP 2018 Annual Meeting. “Disease burden can be measured using a variety of indicators, including mortality, morbidity and financial cost. Various measurements of mortality as indicators of disease burden are cause-of-death ranking, mortality rates and years of potential life lost. The cause-of-death ranking is a useful tool to assess the relative burden of cause-specific mortality. The CDC compiles its annual leading-causes-of-death ranking based on a selected list of 113 causes. SLE is not included on this list.”
To measure the years of potential life lost caused by SLE, relative to the CDC’s 15 leading causes of death, as well as to 12 other autoimmune diseases, Singh and colleagues conducted a population-based study using death counts from the CDC-WONDER database. The researchers tabulated the number of deaths between Jan. 1, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2015, for a total of 28 diseases, including SLE and the top 15 conditions in the CDC’s leading-cause-of-death list.
In addition, the researchers calculated years of potential life lost by subtracting each decedent’s age at death from a predetermined age of 75 years. The years of were then added together to determine the total potential years lost.
According to Singh, SLE was determined to be the underlying or a contributing cause of death among 28,411 women from 2000 to 2015. The ranking of SLE deaths relative to the CDC’s official leading-causes-of-death list among females demonstrated that SLE is among the top 15 leading causes of death among women aged 15 to 44 years.
Among women aged 15 to 24 years, SLE ranked 10th among the leading causes of death.
Relative to the top 15 leading causes-of-death in women in these age groups, years of potential life lost for SLE was 304.2 thousand years in women aged 15 to 44 years, and 66.2 thousand years among women aged 15 to 24 years. Potential life lost related to SLE ranked 14th in women aged 15 to 44 years, and 8th in women aged 15 to 24 years. This ranking placed SLE above diabetes mellitus, HIV disease, septicemia, chronic lower respiratory disease, anemias, nephritis, and cerebrovascular disease.
Among other autoimmune diseases, SLE ranked second in terms of potential life lost among women aged 15 to 44 years, above insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, myocarditis, multiple sclerosis, systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Addison’s disease, dermatomyositis, chronic active hepatitis, myasthenia gravis, primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune hemolytic anemia. SLE ranked number one among autoimmune diseases in potential life lost among women aged 15 to 24 years.
“This warrants further studies on SLE disease burden, especially on years lost to disability, quality of life and life expectations, which can be used to develop and prioritize public health programs, assess performance changes in SLE prescriptions, identify high-risk populations and set research priorities and funding, which may eventually reduce SLE burden,” Singh said. “NIH in 2016 provided $97 million for SLE, vs. $1,084 million
for diabetes and $3,780 million for HIV disease. I am trying to make the case that SLE investigators deserve more.” – by Jason Laday
Reference:
Singh RR. Abstract 1888. Presented at ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Oct. 20-24, 2018; Chicago.
Disclosure: Singh reports no relevant financial disclosures.