Childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) continues to carry a high mortality burden -- even greater than that seen with adult-onset disease, a longitudinal cohort study showed. In a multivariate model adjusting for age, disease duration, and other covariates, childhood-onset lupus was independently associated with an increased mortality risk, with a hazard ratio of 3.1 (95% CI 1.3 to 7.3, P<0.05), according to Aimee O. Hersh, MD, and colleagues from the University of California San Francisco.
