Early Clinical Features in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Can They Be Used to Achieve Earlier Diagnosis? A Risk Prediction Model

The study compared the primary care consulting behavior of 1,739 people with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) to 6,956 controls and developed a risk prediction model to aid earlier diagnosis. It found that people with SLE had significantly higher consultation rates (median 9.2 vs. 3.8 per year) due to clinical features like arthralgia, rash, alopecia, and others. The final model, validated in a cohort of 1,831,747 patients, showed good discrimination (ROC curve 0.75) but low absolute risk predictions due to SLE's rarity. The findings suggested that earlier diagnosis opportunities exist in primary care, and the model could help identify at-risk individuals.