To examine associations between white blood cell inflammatory parameters (WBC-IP) and disease activity in childhood-onset SLE, and compare their diagnostic performance with conventional inflammatory markers.
Approach:
Design and participants: Prospective cohort at Ramathibodi Hospital, enrolling patients younger than 18 years with SLE from May 2021 to March 2023. Cross-sectional comparisons included patients with active disease, a separate remission cohort, and 112 age-matched healthy controls.
Longitudinal assessment: Patients active at baseline were reassessed after four to six weeks and again when inactive disease was achieved. Clinical assessments and blood collection occurred together.
Measures: Disease activity was assessed using SLEDAI-2K; inactive disease was defined as clinical SLEDAI-2K of 0. Laboratory measures included WBC-IP, ESR, CRP, procalcitonin, complement C3 and C4, and anti-dsDNA.
Interpretation:
The provided article context describes the study rationale and methods but does not include results; findings about WBC-IP performance or associations cannot be summarized.
Limitations:
The supplied context ends during the WBC-IP methods section and provides no results or discussion.
CRP and procalcitonin were not measured at initial assessment in some patients; residual specimens were stored at −18°C and analyzed later.
Investigational inhibitor was not associated with treatment-related serious adverse events and produced biomarker changes consistent with pathway inhibition in healthy volunteers.
