Cardiac valve involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus and primary antiphospholipid syndrome: lack of correlation with antiphospholipid antibodies

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of cardiac valve disease in systemic lupus erythematosus or in patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome and to assess the role of the antiphospholipid antibodies as risk factor for endocardial lesions. We studied 39 consecutive patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (mean age 34 ± 12 years, 38 female and one male), 20 women with primary antiphospholipid syndrome (mean age 32 ± 4 years) and 20 normal subjects (mean age 35 ± 8 years, 15 female and five male). All patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome had increased levels of serum anticardiolipin antibodies and recurrent fetal abortions; some of them also had arterial and/or venous thrombosis and/or thrombocytopenia. M-mode, two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography were performed in all patients. IgG anticardiolipin antibodies were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Valvular lesions were observed in 15 patients (38%) with systemic lupus erythematosus. These abnormalities included: mitral valve thickening or vegetation, mitral valve prolapse and aortic valve vegetation; mitral, aortic and tricuspid regurgitation; mitral stenosis. None of the patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome and of the normal subjects was found to have valvular abnormalities. In systemic lupus erythematosus, high levels of anticardiolipin antibodies were detected in 73% of the patients with valvular lesions and in 67% of the patients without valvular lesions (P > 0.05). We conclude that valvular involvement is frequent in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus but it is apparently unrelated to antiphospholipid autoimmunization.