Prevalence, Morphologic Types, and Evolution of Cardiac Valvular Disease in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Abstract

We performed echocardiography prospectively, 4.9±0.7 years apart (mean ±SD), in 74 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. On the basis of the first study, the patients were distributed in four groups according to the type of valvular involvement: 7 patients had vegetations (Libman—Sacks endocarditis; group 1); 6 patients had rigid and thickened valves with stenosis, regurgitation, or both (group 2); 5 patients had miscellaneous forms of valvular involvement without valvular dysfunction (group 3), as did the 60 controls; and 56 patients had no valvular disease (group 4).