Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024141 (systemic lupus erythematosus)
 44,322 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Synthetic glucocorticoids are the most potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, which have been used for almost 50 years as a core drug for the treatment of connective tissue diseases. The mechanism of action of glucocorticoids as anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive drug is considered as the repression of inflammatory cytokines, receptors of cytokines, and adhesion molecules. When 60 mg of prednisolone is administered in 3 divided doses, the plasma concentrations are around 20-30 micrograms/dl during the day time, in which condition around 90% of GC receptors are occupied. However, the concentration will decrease almost to 0 microgram/dl in the next early morning. In case of methyl prednisolone pulse therapy, about 40 micrograms/dl of the steroid is present in the next morning. These kinetics are important when we consider the glucocorticoid therapy. In the treatment of connective tissue diseases, the combination of the steroid therapy with the immunosuppressive therapy should always be considered. In diffuse proliferative lupus nephritis, glucocorticoid dosage, started at high level to suppress the clinical activity of SLE, decrease rather rapidly while cytotoxic drugs are administered at least for 2 years. In the treatment of systemic sclerosis, normotensive scleroderma kidney is treated with moderate dose of glucocorticoid and cytotoxic drugs. It is our clinical impression that low dose glucocorticoid is quite effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. However, low dose glucocorticoid therapy is effective for the patient's sense of well-being, but is scarsely effective for the articular symptoms itself and shows intense rebound phenomenon when glucocorticoid is withdrawn.
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PMID:[Synthetic glucocorticoid in the treatment of connective tissue diseases]. 1007 18

The influence of silicone breast implants on patients who develop systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and scleroderma are not known. Thirty SLE and 15 scleroderma patients who developed their diseases after under-going augmentation mammoplasty with silicone breast implants were studied. Clinical, laboratory, and treatment features for SLE were compared with age-, sex-, and race-matched controls from our 570-patient cohort. Comparisons were also made with a 75-patient university medical center scleroderma cohort. The SLE implant patients had milder disease but greater frequencies of cutaneous findings, cognitive impairment, and fibromyalgia than SLE patients without implants (p < 0.05). The scleroderma implant group also tended to have milder disease. Of the 45 patients, 26 had their implants removed. Subjective, clinical, and serologic remission after explantation occurred in two of the patients (both with SLE). Twenty-four additional patients had transient subjective improvement or no improvement after explantation; one patient developed malignant hypertension and a scleroderma kidney weeks after explantation.In conclusion, most lupus and scleroderma patients with implants experienced milder, although apparently classical, disease. Dramatic changes in disease course occurred in 3 of the 26 patients immediately after explantation. Because idiopathic disease patients have a 2-10% spontaneous remission rate, more time will be needed to evaluate the natural disease course in the remaining explanted patients.
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PMID:A Comparison of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Scleroderma Patients with and without Silicone Breast Implants. 1907 80