[서울=뉴시스] Reporter Ryu Nan-young = If one day, a butterfly-shaped red spot suddenly appears on your face, you may be suspected of systemic lupus erythematosus.
Lupus is a typical rheumatic disease that causes a red rash on the skin. Lupus is a Latin word for wolf, which is named after a rash on the patient’s skin, which looks like a wolf bite.
Famous American singer Selena Gomez also confessed that she was fighting lupus and released a photo of a kidney transplant from her friend on her Instagram.
Lupus mainly occurs in women.
According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service on the 14th, the number of patients who received treatment at the hospital for lupus in 2019 was 26556, of which 2991 female patients accounted for 86.6% of the total.
In addition, although it is a rare disease with a prevalence rate of 0.05 to 0.1% in whites, it is known that the prevalence rate is higher and symptoms are severe in East Asians.
Lupus is particularly common among young women in their 30s and 40s. Women are more susceptible to lupus than men because estrogen, a female hormone, plays a role in increasing inflammatory and immune responses. Parents or siblings who have lupus are less than 10% of lupus patients, and less than 5% of children born to lupus can develop the disease.
Symptoms include mild fever, swelling, fatigue, powerlessness, weight loss, and general discomfort. You may also experience skin symptoms in which the cheeks or limbs on the face turn red. Relatively serious symptoms such as acute bleeding, difficulty breathing, and loss of consciousness can occur.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which immune cells in the body destroy their organs and tissues due to abnormalities in the immune system. The cause of lupus has not yet been identified, but it is estimated that infection, UV exposure, excessive stress, certain drugs, hormones, and genetic predisposition will act.
All tissues of the whole body, such as joints, muscles, skin, nerve tissues, kidneys, etc., are targeted for attack, and accordingly, symptoms appear in various ways, making it difficult to predict and treat disease progression.
Seo Chang-hee, a professor of rheumatology at Ajou University Hospital, said, “It is not easy to diagnose lupus because the symptoms are different for each patient and different symptoms appear over time in each patient.” “A detailed medical history survey of patients and current symptoms need to be investigated. In the test, you have to check for abnormalities in blood cells or autoantibodies.”
Seoul National University dermatology professor Jeong Jin-ho explained, “There are patients with very mild symptoms of lupus with only one lesion on the skin, and there are various patients with serious symptoms due to invasion of internal organs.”
The American Rheumatology Society is based on lupus diagnosis criteria ▲ butterfly-shaped erythema on the cheek ▲ discotic skin lesions ▲ hypersensitivity to sunlight ▲ oral ulcers ▲ arthritis ▲ kidney disease ▲ neurological diseases ▲ serositis ▲ hematologic diseases ▲ immunological diseases ▲ antinuclear Eleven kinds of antibodies were suggested. If four or more of these are satisfied, the diagnosis is made as lupus.
There is no cure for lupus yet. Treatment proceeds to prevent acute deterioration and prevent damage to the organs of the body as much as possible. It is largely divided into symptomatic treatment and causal treatment. Symptomatic treatment is to control pain caused by inflammation of lupus. Usually, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used to control arthritis, pleurisy, and pericarditis. The cause treatment is to control autoimmunity, which is the cause of lupus, and includes antimalarial drugs, steroids, cytoxane, immunolan, and cyclosporin, and it is appropriately adjusted according to the symptoms and inflammation of the patient.
Lupus nephritis (carditis), which causes inflammation and damage to the kidneys with relatively large vascular distribution, can lead to end-stage renal failure or death in 87% of patients within 10 years without treatment. Although there has not been an adequate treatment for lupus nephritis so far, the treatment opportunity for lupus nephritis patients has been opened as the lupus nephritis drug’Lupkinis’ developed by the Canadian pharmaceutical company’Orinia’ invested by Iljin Group received approval from the US FDA.
In order to prevent lupus from getting worse, it is first of all to prevent fatigue or stress from accumulating.
Professor Seo said, “It is not possible to prevent lupus, but the patient can prevent its deterioration. Excessive UV exposure, fatigue, adverse reactions to drugs, pathogen infection, and stress are the causes of deterioration, so it is important to avoid it.” “Fever, muscle pain, headache, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, etc. appear when the disease worsens, so it is important to come to the hospital as soon as you have these symptoms.”
Professor Jeong said, “Use a sunscreen indoors so that it does not absorb sunlight as well as fluorescent ultraviolet rays in the house. If you block the ultraviolet rays, your skin will lack vitamin D synthesis, so you need to take supplements.” Those known to boost immunity in the back should be avoided because they can worsen inflammation in lupus patients.”
☞ Sympathy Press Newsis [email protected] <저작권자ⓒ 공감언론 뉴시스통신사. 무단전재-재배포 금지.>
Copyright ownerⓒ Newsis news agency. Unauthorized reproduction-redistribution prohibited