الفهرس 
Lupus NephritisOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: Renal involvement may be the earliest presenting manifestation in juvenile SLE and is usually a cause of significant morbidity. Early diagnosis is therefore mandatory.
Objective: We sought to investigate the value of urinary ceruloplasmin (uCP) as a biomarker of renal affection in children and adolescents with SLE. The ultimate objective is to identify non-invasive markers of SLE activity and/or severity that would aid in the management.
Methods: We conducted a comparative cross-sectional study over a period of 6 months (from August 2019 to March 2020) at the Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology Unit, Children’s Hospital, Ain Shams University. The study included total number of 60 subjects who were classified into 40 patients with SLE and 20 age and sex-matched subjects as a control group.
Results: We observed a significant increase of uCP expression in the SLE patients as compared to the control group and this was clearly obvious in cases with chronic kidney disease (CKD). There was progressive increase in CKD grades with the elevation of uCP levels. The uCP concentrations were positively correlated with age, SLE duration, ESR, and serum creatinine concentration. It was also negatively correlated with the serum albumin concentration and the glomerular filtration rate.
Conclusion: Urinary CP could be a useful non-invasive marker of kidney affection in pediatric SLE. It may prove to have prognostic implications due to its elevation that goes hand in hand with progression of CKD. Further wider scale prospective studies may justify its addition to the workup of juvenile SLE