Lupus & antiphospholipid syndrome
Geographic distribution of mortality from systemic lupus erythematosus
Authors' conclusion
The similarities in the geographic distributions of death rates from HL, MS, CD, and UC suggest that these 4 diseases share a set of one or more common environmental risk factors. Other environmental risk factors besides EBV infection must contribute to the varying occurrence of SLE across the globe. These risk factors start exerting their influence at a very young age of less than 5 years.
Study context
- Population
- Vital statistics of 21 countries, 1951–202221 countries
- Comparison
- Geographic variation of SLE mortality vs Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis
- Outcome
- Geographic variation of overall and age-specific death rates from SLE compared with HL, MS, CD and UC
Methodological detailsvital statistics of 21 countries, linear regression analysis
- Vital statistics of 21 countries
- Linear regression analysis
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Geographic distribution of death rates
- HL, MS, Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) showed remarkably similar geographic variations; the geographic distribution of SLE did not fit this overall pattern
- High SLE death rates not clearly associated with developing vs developed countries, northern vs southern latitude, or any specific continent
- Similar geographic distributions of SLE consistently found among consecutive age groups, from 0-4 to 85+ years
Original publication
Geographic distribution of mortality from systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus. Published 30 April 2026. doi:10.
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