Cardiovascular risk factors and complications in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus with and without nephritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: It remains unclear how the presence of renal involvement will affect the cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and complications in patients with SLE.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis using PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE and Scopus to identify studies published between 1947 and 2022 that evaluate the CV risk factors and complications in patients with SLE with or without lupus nephritis (LN).

Results: 58 studies were evaluated, with 22 two-arm studies (n=8675) included in two-arm meta-analysis and 45 studies (n=385 315) included in proportional meta-analysis.