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FAR in systemic lupus erythematosus: a potential biomarker of disease activity and lupus nephritis

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Abstract

The fibrinogen-to-albumin ratio (FAR), a novel inflammatory marker, has been studied in various diseases. However, the significance of FAR in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has not been fully elucidated. This study was to investigate the connection between FAR and SLE. A retrospective analysis of 154 SLE patients and 77 healthy individuals was performed. The clinical and laboratory data were reviewed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted for FAR at baseline to predict disease activity and lupus nephritis (LN) in SLE patients. Pearson correlation was also applied. FAR in the SLE group was found to be significantly higher than that of the healthy control group (83.71 mg/g vs. 53.14 mg/g, P < 0.001). It was also significantly higher in patients with LN than that in patients without (107.64 mg/g vs. 67.75 mg/g, P < 0.001). The ROC curve for predicting LN showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of FAR (0.859, 95% CI 0.803–0.914) was the largest when compared to albumin (0.852, 95% CI 0.789–0.916) or fibrinogen (0.736, 95% CI 0.659–0.814) alone. In addition, FAR was a good predictor of severe disease activity in SLE (AUC = 0.721, 95% CI 0.612–0.830) and LN patients (AUC = 0.789, 95% CI 0.680–0.898). Pearson correlation analysis indicated that FAR demonstrated a strong correlation with SLE disease activity index 2000 (r = 0.4288, P < 0.001). FAR was significantly increased in SLE patients. It is a possible biomarker for disease activity and renal involvement in SLE.

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The data underlying this article are available in the article and in its online supplementary material. Additional data are available upon request to the corresponding author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nephrology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Jili Xu & Hengjin Wang

  2. Department of Nephrology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Hongmei Zhang & Hengjin Wang

  3. Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210006, Jiangsu, China

    Nan Che

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Contributions

JX, NC, and HW conceived the idea and designed the study. JX and HZ contributed to the data collection. JX analyzed data. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JX and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nan Che or Hengjin Wang.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital (No.2023–065). Verbal informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Xu, J., Zhang, H., Che, N. et al. FAR in systemic lupus erythematosus: a potential biomarker of disease activity and lupus nephritis. Clin Exp Med 23, 4779–4785 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-023-01239-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-023-01239-2

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