Analyzing the Demographics of Incomplete Lupus Erythematosus (ILE) and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)
Restricted (Penn State Only)
Author:
Newman, Peri
Area of Honors:
Immunology and Infectious Disease
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Nancy J Olsen, Thesis Supervisor Robert Paulson, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
demographics epidemiology systemic lupus rheumatology immunology public health
Abstract:
Incomplete lupus erythematosus (ILE) is a diagnosis for patients who have clinical and serological features similar to those seen among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), but patients who have ILE do not have enough disease criteria to be diagnosed with SLE. Individuals who have ILE are at a higher risk for developing more disease criteria and then progressing to SLE. It is unknown why some individuals with ILE will progress to SLE while others will not. It has been thought that the demographics of patients with ILE and SLE differ, which could explain why some patients with ILE progress to SLE. The purpose of this study is to determine if there are differences in demographic groups among those with ILE and those with SLE. The data used for this analysis came from the demographic data collected in the Study of Anti-Malarials in Incomplete Lupus Erythematosus (SMILE) and from a meta-analysis using data collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Lupus Registries to estimate the demographics for SLE in 2018. Chi-square tests were conducted for gender, race, and ethnicity to determine if there were differences in the prevalence of certain demographic groups between the ILE and SLE data. It was found that there was a lower prevalence of racial minority groups in the ILE dataset than in the SLE dataset, which suggests barriers to health, racism, and disease progression may lead to more individuals who belong to minority groups having SLE.
