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Background and Objective: The incidence of infections is one of the most disturbing problems in the management of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The aim of this study was to describe the role of tuberculosis (TB) as a cause of fever in SLE patients. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study 103 SLE patients enrolled in Ahvaz, South-West of Iran during 2000 - 06. Patients were diagnosed according to American College of Rheumatology criteria (at least 4 of 11 criteria). Diagnosis of tuberculosis was based on Iranian National Program against TB criteria. The infection free patients were given corticosteroid therapy. Results: In this study 20 patients did not follow the complete cycle and finally 83 patients were established as sample population of this study. Mean age of patients was 22.2±10 years, female to male ratio was 9.2:1, mean duration of treatment was12±3.2 months and mean of daily dose of prednisolone was 28.2±13 mg.From total of patients, 8 (9.6%) had active tuberculosis. five patients had pulmonary and three with other type of TB, respectively. One of the above eight patients eventually died due to SLE/TB. Conclusion: Tuberculosis is one of the important causes of fever among patients with SLE under treatment of corticosteroid. In approaching febrile SLE patient TB should always be considered as a treat.

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Background and Objective: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an inflammatory multi-system disease with an unknown origin. In patients with lupus disease cardiovascular events is an important cause of mortality and morbidity. This study carried out to measurement of high sensitivity C –reactive protein (HsCRP) and homocysteine in patients with SLE and their relation with diseases activity and cardiovascular risk factors.

Materials and Methods: This case control study carried out on 60 patients (55 females and 5 males) with lupus disease which referred to Clinical Research Center of Rheumatology, Mashhad, Iran and 30 controls (26 females and 4 males) during 2007-08. Information of subjects were gathered using SLEDAI questionare. HsCRP and homocysteine of subjects were measured. The level of low density lipoprotein (LDL), Triglycerid, hypertension and Body mass index (BMI) was assessed. Systemic lupus erythematosus activity was assessed by using SLEDAI so that if the score was higher than 10, lupus was called as active disease.

Results: Mean age was 28.8±10.3 and 33.8±9.13 years in SLE and control groups respectively. The mean of HsCRP in SLE patients were 3±2.42 mg/dl versus in controls were 1.58±2.1. The serum level of homocysteine were 12.3±1.93 µmol/L and 24±8.13 µmol/L in SLE patients and controls (P<0.001). Mean disease activity was 15.37. There was no any associtation between homocysteine and HsCRP and disease activity. LDL, Triglycerid, hypertension had significant association with homocystein (P<0.05). BMI and Triglycerid had significant association with HsCRP (P<0.05).

Conclusion: This study showed that there is no linear significant corrolation between homocysteine, HsCRP and disease activity, but there is significant corrolation between increase of homocysteine and HsCRP and cardiovascular risk factors.

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Background and Objective: Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in programmed cell death which expressed at high level in T cells, plays an important role in the development and cause autoimmune disorders. This study was done to evaluate the frequncy of rs11568821 polymorphism in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Methods: This case-control study was done on 76 patients with SLE and 56 healthy controls. After DNA extraction, frequncy of polymorphisms PDCD1.3 by polymerase chain reaction and sequencing methods in subjects were determined.
Results: There was a significant diference between frequency of allele and genotype at rs11568821 Polymorphism in region of intron 4 of PDCD1.3 gene in case and control groups (P<0.05). A allele and AG genotype was significantly higher in patients than healthy controls (9.5% vs 0.09%, P<0.05). There was no significant association between clinical and laboratory findings with genotype frequencies.
Conclusion: rs11568821 single nucleotide polymorphism in intron 4 gene region PDCD1 can be used as a genetic factor to be involved the SLE susceptibility.