Background: Polyautoimmunity is defined as having 2 or more autoimmune diseases. Little is known about polyautoimmunity in patients with cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE).
Objectives: To estimate prevalence and 5-year incidence of non-lupus erythematosus (LE) autoimmune diseases in patients with CLE.
Methods: Patients with CLE were identified In the Danish National Patient Registry and each patient was age- and sex-matched with 10 general population controls. Outcome information on non-LE autoimmune diseases was obtained by register-linkage between Danish National Patient Registry and the National Prescription Register. The risk ratio (RR) for prevalent non-LE autoimmune disease at time of CLE diagnosis was calculated in modified Poisson regression; and hazard ratios (HRs) for incident non-LE autoimmune disease were estimated in Cox regression analyses.
Results: Overall, 1674 patients with CLE had a higher prevalence of a non-LE autoimmune disease than the comparators (18.5 vs 7.9%; RR 2.4; 95% CI, 2.1 to 2.6). Correspondingly, the cumulative incidence of a non-LE autoimmune disease during 5 years of follow-up was increased for the patients with CLE: HR 3.5 (95% CI, 3.0 to 4.0).
Limitations: Risk of detection and misclassification bias, mainly pertaining to the CLE group.
Conclusion: Patients with CLE had higher prevalence and 5-year cumulative incidence of a non-LE autoimmune disease than the general population.
Keywords: autoimmune diseases; cutaneous lupus erythematosus; epidemiology; polyautoimmunity; thyroid autoimmunity.
© 2023 by the American Academy of Dermatology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc.