Chikungunya and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus - A Case Series

Abstract

BACKGROUNDChikungunya (CHIK) is a disease that affects thousands of people annually and causes debilitating joint pain. It is transmitted by mosquitoes from the genus Aedes, mainly by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. In the last 15 years, there have been an increase in the frequency of chikungunya surges that can be related to a greater incidence of more severe forms of the disease than previously described, besides having occurred atypical forms, in which patients expressed, among other autoimmune diseases, the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The SLE is a complex autoimmune disease, with varied clinical presentations and multifactorial etiology, in which genetic and environmental factors interact determining the susceptibility to the disease. As environmental factors, there are viral infections that can intensify undesirable immune responses, stimulating specific immune cells. METHODSThis study identified patients with previous CHIK diagnosis that developed SLE in a university hospital in the state of Paraíba, Brazil, through a cross-sectional retrospective study in medical records of the Alcides Carneiro University Hospital, selecting a case series of patients who manifested SLE after CHIK from 2014 to 2020, which were conducted inpatient or outpatient. The medical records were evaluated based on a questionnaire with specific criteria based on SLICC 2012 e ACR/EULAR 2019 for the diagnosis of SLE, and on clinical, epidemiological and serological criteria for the diagnosis of CHIK.