Background: About 50% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) develop lupus nephritis during the course of their disease. Up to 10% of these patients reach the end-stage renal disease.
Purpose: Detection of the relationship between the activity of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and histopathology of renal biopsy.
Patients and methods: This study is cross- sectional and observational. It included one hundred Egyptian patients with SLE according to the 2015 ACR/SLICC Revised criteria. SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) and renal biopsy were done to all patients in addition to the routine investigations.
Results: Of the one hundred patients; 9 were males and 91 were females with a mean age ± standard deviation of 32.28 ± 9.59 years and a median of 31.5 years. The mean value SLEDAI was 11.92 ± 3.92. Lupus nephritis (LN) was found in 85 patients (85%) with 5 patients (5%) having class 1, 73 patients (73%) having class 2 and 7 patients (7%) having class3 LN.
Conclusion: Ther relationship between the SLEDAI score and the histopathological study of renal biopsy in patients with SLE is strong and significant with a mean value of SLEDAI directly proportional to the class of LN.