OBJECTIVE: to assess the clinical characteristics of CDLE, its interrelationship with SLE as well as the significance of some serum autoantibodies as markers of systemic involvement in CDLE. METHODS: sixteen patients with CDLE were compared to seventeen patients with SLE according to the ACR criteria. Clinical and demographics characteristics and serum autoantibodies like antinuclear antibodies (ANA), antibodies to dsDNA, Sm, Ro/SS-A, La/SS-B, ENA/RNP, and anticardiolipin antibodies IgG and IgM were determined. The statistical evaluation was carried out using Chi-square test. A probability level of =0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: age and disease duration in CDLE patients were significantly longer than in patients with SLE (p<0.04). No difference was found regarding the number of ACR diagnostic and classification criteria between CDLE and SLE patients. Arterial hypertension was clearly associated with sistemic involvement (p<0.03). Only antibody to dsDNA showed to be significantly associated with SLE diagnosis (p<0.04). CONCLUSIONS: the clinical and laboratorial evaluation of CDLE and SLE patients showed that arterial hypertension and serum antibody to dsDNA were the laboratorial and clinical parameters associated to systemic involvement in CDLE.
chronic discoid lupus erythematosus; systemic lupus erythematosus; autoantibodies; systemic markers in CDLE
