Introduction: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease caused by many polyclonal autoantibodies and characterized by numerous comorbid lesions of internal organs and systems. Research with respect to the role of various infectious agents in the development and course of SLE, and primarily the role of cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), is ongoing. It is important to find out whether patients with SLE are infected with CMV and EBV, since the clinical manifestations of SLE and active viral infection are similar.
Aim: To find out the infection of SLE patients with CMV and EBV.
Materials and methods: The study included 115 patients with SLE, among whom women of working age predominated. The study was conducted in three stages: to find out CMV infection, to detect EBV infection, to determine the simultaneous infection of SLE patients with CMV and EBV and, in particular, their active phases. The actual material was processed on a personal computer in Excel (Microsoft) and IBM SPSS Statistics using descriptive statistics.
Results: It was found that the serum of the vast majority of SLE patients has specific antibodies to CMV, and only three have no antibodies to the virus. IgM antibodies to CMV were detected in 22.61% of patients, which may indicate an active phase of infection. Most often, the CMV seroprofile was detected as a combination of IgG (+) and IgM (-) (74.78%) among patients with SLE. It was established that the absolute majority of SLE patients are infected with EBV (98.26%). Active EBV infection was found in 15.65% of SLE patients, and chronic persistent - in 53.91%. Most often (53.91%) there are SLE patients with a seroprofile in the combination of EBV IgG to NA (+) IgG to EA (+) VCA IgM (-).
Most often (41.74%) SLE patients had a combination of laboratory markers of viral infection in the form of seroprofile CMV IgG (+) IgM (-); EBV IgG to EA (+) IgG to NA (+) IgM to VCA (-). The active phase of CMV and/or EBV infection was present in 32.17% of SLE patients, of which: 16.52% had only active CMV infection, 9.57% - only active EBV infection, and 6.09% – a combination of active CMV and EBV infections, which indicates that more than a third of SLE patients have active CMV and/or EBV infections, which can affect the clinical manifestations of the disease and require specific treatment tactics.
Conclusion: Almost all patients with SLE are infected with CMV, among whom 22.61% of patients have active infection. The absolute majority of SLE patients are infected with EBV, of which 15.65% had an active infection. Most often, SLE patients had a combination of laboratory markers of infection in the form of seroprofile CMV IgG (+) IgM (-); EBV IgG to EA (+) IgG to NA (+) IgM to VCA (-). The active phase of CMV and/or EBV infection was present in 32.17% of patients with SLE, of which: 16.52% had only active CMV infection, 9.57% only active EBV infection, and 6.09% – a combination of active CMV and EBV infections.