The combination of systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren's disease and severe diffuse glomerular nephritis has only rarely been reported. A 14-year-old girl is described with lupus nephritis in whom co-existent clinical and histological features of Sjogren's syndrome were found. These include bilateral parotid enlargement, xerostomia, increased serum amylase, reduced salivary secretion and lymp...

The neonatal lupus syndrome consists of transient cutaneous lupus lesions or permanent congenital complete heart block (or hepatic fibrosis), or both, in infants born to mothers with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The frequency of conduction abnormalities was examined in 86 offspring of 53 women affected by SLE. Electrocardiograms from the offspring demonstrated normal sinus rhythm in 84 o...

Serum SS-A/Ro autoantibodies are commonly found in patients with Sjogren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, neonatal lupus, and subacute cutaneous lupus. Two proteins of 60 and 52 kD have been described as targets for these autoantibodies. To define the 52-kD component unambiguously, cDNA clones were isolated from human HepG2 and MOLT-4 cell cDNA libraries. The identity of cDNA was estab...

We present a 12-year-old girl with systemic lupus erythematosus and associated antiphospholipid syndrome who developed an unusual manifestation of purpura fulminans in an accelerated fashion. The patient improved after prompt treatment with anticoagulants, aggressive immunosuppressive drugs and plasmapheresis. This is the first pediatric case of purpura fulminans due to secondary antiphospholip...

Idiotypes and antiidiotypes are thought to be important immune regulators and have provided clues for the origin and pathogenicity of autoantibodies. Many lupus and Sjögren's syndrome patients, as well as most neonatal lupus infants with congenital heart block or dermatitis, have antibodies to the ribonucleoprotein Ro/SSA, which is one of a group of RNA-protein autoantigens commonly found in hu...

Current clinical practice relies heavily on serologic testing for the prompt and accurate diagnosis of rheumatic diseases. Serologic testing should be used to support the findings of the history and physical examination, and, in some cases, to monitor disease activity. The inflammation of the rheumatoid arthritis (RA), polymyalgia rheumatica, and temporal arteritis can be assessed by the erythr...

logic correlations of the antiphospholipid syndrome. Semin Arthritis Rheum 1995; 24:262-72. 2 Asherson RA. The catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome. J Rheumatol 1992;19:508-12. 3 Asherson RA, Piette J-C. The catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome 1996: acute multiorgan failure associated with antiphospholipid antibodies: a review of 31 patients. Lupus 1996;5:414-7. 4 Mazzucchelli R, Barbadill...

The case is reported of a 41 year old white woman who developed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) seven years after primary Sjögren's syndrome and four years after the association of Sjögren's syndrome with Jaccoud's arthritis. The SLE was detected by a benign intracranial hypertension, which is a rare neuro-ophthalmic presentation of lupus. No associated conditions linked to benign intracrani...

The combination of lupus erythematosus and erythema multiforme has been grouped as Rowell’s syndrome. Though there are reports of so called ‘Rowell’s syndrome’ (RS) in the literature, recentlymany authors have questioned the rationale behind regarding Rowell’s syndrome as a separate clinical entity. Nevertheless, we describe a 20 year old female patient with features of systemic lupus erythemat...