1991 Volume 14 Issue 2 Pages 131-140
Out of fifty-seven patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we found eight patients (14%) with both antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and vascular occulusive diseases (VOD), and describe here the clinical features of eight SLE patients which were retrospectively analyzed.
Cerebral infarction and deep vein thrombosis were the frequent VOD observed. The other episodes of VOD include amaurosis fugax, mesenteric artery occulusion, transient ischemic attacks and pulmonary infarction. More interestingly, in multiple VOD were observed in 75% of the patients and the occurence of VOD was further associated with thrombocytopenia in all of the patients.
In addition, 4 (66.7%) of the six female patients with histories of pregnancy had recurrent spontaneous abortions which were also associated with thrombocytopenia.
Six (75%) of the eight patients were positive for more than 2 of the aPL including VDRL, lupus anticoagulants and anticardiolipin antibodies.
Treatments with prednisolone (PSL) and/or antiplatelet agents were considered to be effective to protect the recurrence of VOD. Spontaneous abortions, however, could not be protected by the treatment with PSL, 20-30mg/day, in our patients.
