Prevalence and risk factors for coronary artery calcification following kidney transplantation for systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objectives: Patients with SLE who undergo kidney transplantation are at increased risk of premature cardiovascular disease. The current study aimed to investigate the prevalence of coronary artery calcification in transplanted SLE patients without coronary symptoms and to explore risk factors associated with coronary atherosclerosis.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in transplanted SLE patients with a functioning graft.

Premature cardiovascular disease in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus influences survival after renal transplantation.

Objective: To assess graft and patient survival as well as causes for graft loss and patient death after renal transplantation in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Methods: Eighty-seven renal transplantations were performed in 77 patients with SLE from 1972 to 2005. Each recipient with SLE was matched (for date of transplant, age, donor source [living versus deceased], and sex) with 2 renal graft recipients who had non-SLE glomerulonephritis, and the SLE and non-SLE groups were compared with regard to graft survival and patient survival.

[Lupus-nephritis--diagnosis and treatment].

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune, multiorgan disease that usually affects young women. The kidneys are affected (lupus nephritis) in close to one fifth of the patients. Over the past decade earlier diagnosis and improved treatment of lupus nephritis has resulted in substantial improvement of renal function and patient survival.

Recurrent lupus nephritis after kidney transplantation: a surveillance biopsy study.

Objectives: To determine the incidence of recurrent lupus nephritis (LN) in renal transplant recipients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Methods: All patients with SLE that had undergone transplant with a functioning graft were asked in 2008 to participate in a cross-sectional study. The study included a standardised clinical examination, laboratory tests and a biopsy of the transplanted kidney.

Effect of fluvastatin on cardiac outcomes in kidney transplant patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: a randomized placebo-controlled study.

Objective: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with or without end-stage renal failure, are at increased risk of premature cardiovascular disease. Although statin therapy has been found to reduce cardiovascular risk in the general population, its effectiveness in kidney transplant recipients with SLE has not been examined. This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of fluvastatin on cardiac end points in a randomized controlled trial of renal transplant patients with SLE.