6-3-08

Lupus

More than 1.5 million Americans struggle with the often debilitating health effects of lupus, a chronic disease that can cause inflammation and tissue damage to nearly every organ system in the body.

Lupus is an often misunderstood disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack its normal tissue.  Inflammation caused by lupus can damage some of the major organs in the body and result in significant disability or even death.  Dr. Mark Francis, professor and chief of rheumatology at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, explains some variations of the disease.

SOUND BITE:  “. . . the majority of people who have lupus will have difficulty, with their skin, with their joints, maybe inflammation with the linings of their lungs or their heart, but don’t have serious problems with their kidneys or other major organs and those people tend to go on and have nice normal lives.  We tend to worry much more in people, who develop kidney involvement in association with lupus.”

Dr. Francis says risk factors for lupus include both genetic and environmental triggers.  It tends to occur in women of child-bearing age between 15 to 50 years, but men can develop it, too.  People of color tend to have a higher incidence of the disease.  He says treatments for lupus vary from simply staying out of the sun to taking high doses of steroids.

SOUND BITE: “Probably the medications that people who have lupus take most commonly would be Plaquenil®.  It’s a medicine that originally was used to help treat malaria, but it turns out that it is very helpful for people with arthritis, particularly people who have systemic lupus.  And of course, people often will be taking medicines such as nonsteriodal inflammatory agents for their arthritis problems.”

Dr. Francis says people who have lupus should get plenty of rest, eat a heart healthy diet and get moderate amounts of exercise.   It is important for individuals to work with their own physicians to determine the appropriate level of therapy.

This is Ruth Slottag at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield.