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PO:04:099 Late-onset SLE in real-world practice: higher comorbidity burden with comparable clinical, serologic, and treatment profiles

lupusscimed · 2026-03-01 · canonical JSON source

14 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Objectives Late-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (LO-SLE) is a less common form of the disease, characterised by a higher burden of comorbidities and less frequent organ involvement. Our objective is to analyse the demographic, clinical and therapeutic characteristics of patients with LO-SLE in relation to other patients.Methods A cross-sectional observational study of SLE patients followed from January 2012 to May 2025, categorised into two groups according to age at diagnosis: younger than 50 years (not LO-SLE) and older than 50 years (LO-SLE). Demographic, clinical, analytical and therapeutic variables were collected from the patients‘ electronic medical records.Results A total of 302 patients (90.70% women) were included, divided into 231 not LO-SLE and 71 LO-SLE ( table 1). The follow-up time was significantly shorter in the LO-SLE group (p<0.001).In terms of comorbidities, the LO-SLE group had a higher proportion of osteoporosis (p<0.001), neoplasms (p<0.001), high blood pressure (p=0.001) and dyslipidemia (p=0.025). Numerically, we found a higher proportion of lupus nephropathy in the non-LO-SLE group (16% vs 6%), but the results were not statistically significant.No differences were found in the clinical manifestations at onset, the autoimmunity profile, or the treatments administered. However, a trend towards a higher presence of anti-Ro/La antibodies (p=0.074) and Sjögren’s syndrome (p=0.093) was observed in patients with LO-SLE.Abstract PO:04:099 Table 1Characteristics of the study populationConclusions 23.5% of our SLE patients were diagnosed after the age of 50 and have a significantly shorter follow-up time. These patients have a higher proportion of comorbidities (osteoporosis, neoplasms, high blood pressure and dyslipidemia), probably due to their age.In this real-life study, no differences were found in the clinical manifestations at onset, the autoimmunity profile, or the treatments administered compared to patients without LO-SLE.