Cardiac Manifestations of Child-Onset Lupus

Investigators from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, conducted a retrospective cohort study to estimate the prevalence and incidence of cardiac disease in children that is associated with a new diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), identify risk factors for cardiac disease in these children, and compare rates of cardiac diseases in pediatric and adult patients with SLE. For the study, the investigators abstracted data from the Clinformatics DataMart database on children (5–17 years old) and adults (18–64 years old) with a new diagnosis of SLE between 2000 and 2013. The database contains patient- and encounter-level data on approximately 20% of US residents. Study participants were identified by at …