OBJECTIVES To describe disease characteristics and treatment modalities in a multidisciplinary cohort of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients in Switzerland. METHODS Cross-sectional analysis of 255 patients included in the Swiss SLE Cohort and coming from centres specialised in Clinical Immunology, Internal Medicine, Nephrology and Rheumatology. Clinical data were collected with a stan...

OBJECTIVE To determine the level of agreement of disease flare severity (distinguishing severe, moderate, and mild flare and persistent disease activity) in a large paper-patient exercise involving 988 individual cases of systemic lupus erythematosus. METHODS A total of 988 individual lupus case histories were assessed by 3 individual physicians. Complete agreement about the degree of flare (...

Abstract Background/Aims Belimumab was approved in the United Kingdom (UK) 2016 as add-on therapy for patients with auto-antibody positive systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and high disease activity refractory to standard treatment. Data regarding effectiveness of belimumab outside clinical trials has been published worldwide SLE cohorts but not UK. Here, we describe efficacy from a large Lond...

Standardized criteria to classify systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity provide a well-defi ned methodology to accurately assess SLE. These criteria were recently revised to refl ect new knowledge of SLE, both clinical and immunologic. Although developed to classify SLE, these criteria can help with the diagnosis in clinical practice. Research has also provided additional evidence...

BACKGROUND Intravenous belimumab plus standard of care (SoC) is approved in the USA and Europe for treatment of active, autoantibody-positive systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS This phase III, multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (BEL113750; NCT01345253) was conducted in 49 centres across China, Japan and South Korea (May 2011-September 2015). Patients with...