Exclusion of Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus Subtypes From the 2019 European League Against Rheumatism/American College of Rheumatology Classifi cation Criteria for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Comment on the Article by Aringer et al

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 1403-1404
Author(s):  
Lucio Zapata ◽  
Benjamin F. Chong
2021 ◽  
pp. annrheumdis-2020-219373
Author(s):  
Martin Aringer ◽  
Ralph Brinks ◽  
Thomas Dörner ◽  
David Daikh ◽  
Marta Mosca ◽  
...  

Background/objectivesThe European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR)/American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2019 classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus system showed high specificity, while attaining also high sensitivity. We hereby analysed the performance of the individual criteria items and their contribution to the overall performance of the criteria.MethodsWe combined the EULAR/ACR derivation and validation cohorts for a total of 1197 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and n=1074 non-SLE patients with a variety of conditions mimicking SLE, such as other autoimmune diseases, and calculated the sensitivity and specificity for antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and the 23 specific criteria items. We also tested performance omitting the EULAR/ACR criteria attribution rule, which defines that items are only counted if not more likely explained by a cause other than SLE.ResultsPositive ANA, the new entry criterion, was 99.5% sensitive, but only 19.4% specific, against a non-SLE population that included other inflammatory rheumatic, infectious, malignant and metabolic diseases. The specific criteria items were highly variable in sensitivity (from 0.42% for delirium and 1.84% for psychosis to 75.6% for antibodies to double-stranded DNA), but their specificity was uniformly high, with low C3 or C4 (83.0%) and leucopenia <4.000/mm³ (83.8%) at the lowest end. Unexplained fever was 95.3% specific in this cohort. Applying the attribution rule improved specificity, particularly for joint involvement.ConclusionsChanging the position of the highly sensitive, non-specific ANA to an entry criterion and the attribution rule resulted in a specificity of >80% for all items, explaining the higher overall specificity of the criteria set.


Lupus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (14) ◽  
pp. 1854-1865
Author(s):  
Hui Jin ◽  
Tao Huang ◽  
Ruifang Wu ◽  
Ming Zhao ◽  
Haijing Wu ◽  
...  

Although the original purpose of the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) classification criteria was to distinguish SLE from other mimic diseases, and to facilitate sample selection in scientific research, they have become widely used as diagnostic criteria in clinical situations. It is not known yet if regarding classification criteria as diagnostic criteria, what problems might be encountered? This is the first study comparing the three sets of classification criteria for SLE, the 1997 American College of Rheumatology (ACR’97), 2012 Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC’12) and 2019 European League Against Rheumatism/American College of Rheumatology (EULAR/ACR’19), for their ability to distinguish patients with SLE from patients with pure mucocutaneous manifestations (isolated cutaneous lupus erythematosus without internal disease, i-CLE) in the lupus disease spectrum. 1,865 patients with SLE and 232 patients with i-CLE were recruited from a multicenter study. We found that, due to low specificity, none of the three criteria are adept at distinguishing patients with SLE from patients with i-CLE. SLICC’12 performed best among the original three criteria, but if a positive ANA was removed as an entry criterion, EULAR/ACR’19 would performed better. A review of previous studies that compared the three sets of criteria was presented in this work.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (9) ◽  
pp. 1151-1159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Aringer ◽  
Karen Costenbader ◽  
David Daikh ◽  
Ralph Brinks ◽  
Marta Mosca ◽  
...  

ObjectiveTo develop new classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) jointly supported by the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).MethodsThis international initiative had four phases. (1) Evaluation of antinuclear antibody (ANA) as an entry criterion through systematic review and meta-regression of the literature and criteria generation through an international Delphi exercise, an early patient cohort and a patient survey. (2) Criteria reduction by Delphi and nominal group technique exercises. (3) Criteria definition and weighting based on criterion performance and on results of a multi-criteria decision analysis. (4) Refinement of weights and threshold scores in a new derivation cohort of 1001 subjects and validation compared with previous criteria in a new validation cohort of 1270 subjects.ResultsThe 2019 EULAR/ACR classification criteria for SLE include positive ANA at least once as obligatory entry criterion; followed by additive weighted criteria grouped in seven clinical (constitutional, haematological, neuropsychiatric, mucocutaneous, serosal, musculoskeletal, renal) and three immunological (antiphospholipid antibodies, complement proteins, SLE-specific antibodies) domains, and weighted from 2 to 10. Patients accumulating ≥10 points are classified. In the validation cohort, the new criteria had a sensitivity of 96.1% and specificity of 93.4%, compared with 82.8% sensitivity and 93.4% specificity of the ACR 1997 and 96.7% sensitivity and 83.7% specificity of the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics 2012 criteria.ConclusionThese new classification criteria were developed using rigorous methodology with multidisciplinary and international input, and have excellent sensitivity and specificity. Use of ANA entry criterion, hierarchically clustered and weighted criteria reflect current thinking about SLE and provide an improved foundation for SLE research.


2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-179
Author(s):  
Somnath Maitra ◽  
Swapan Sarkar ◽  
Biswaroop Mukherjee ◽  
Suprotim Ghosh

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) presents with diverse clinical features causing diagnostic challenges. Apart from the clinical features, autoantibodies are important for diagnosis along with certain laboratory parameters. Diagnosis is made with the European League against Rheumatism/American College of Rheumatology 2019 Criteria. The case series presented here signifies the correlation between anti ds DNA positivity and its association with poor prognosis and renal disease, whereas antidouble stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) negativity may lead to lack of renal involvement and may be associated with polyserositis. The importance lies in the fact that these patients with anti-dsDNA negativity should be followed up for assessing conversion to positivity of anti-dsDNA, thus altering the prognosis and leading to renal involvement. Moreover, anti-SSA positive SLE patients must be followed up for possible development of sicca symptoms.


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