Accurate diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus, especially in patients with early lupus and atypical lupus, is a major problem in the global medical community. Recently, Sciarray Biologics and Central South University have developed a new diagnostic marker for systemic lupus erythematosus with high specificity and sensitivity after years of efforts, which has raised the diagnosis of the disease to the genetic level for the first time in the world. The results have applied for Chinese and international invention patents, and are expected to be widely used in the clinical diagnosis and treatment evaluation of systemic lupus erythematosus.
Systemic lupus erythematosus is an autoimmune disease that tends to occur in women during the reproductive years, often affecting vital organs such as the skin, blood, kidneys, joints, and brain. The number of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus in China exceeds one million, and its condition is complex, clinically heterogeneous, and even life-threatening. For more than a century, despite a large number of studies by scientists in various countries, there is still a lack of specific and highly sensitive diagnostic markers in the clinic, resulting in some patients with systemic lupus erythematosus unable to obtain accurate diagnosis.
The study also found that the level of gene methylation can distinguish patients with systemic lupus erythematosus from normal people and other autoimmune diseases, significantly improving the diagnostic reliability and accuracy of systemic lupus erythematosus, of which the specificity is more than 95% and the sensitivity is more than 90%. It can also be used to judge the efficacy of systemic lupus erythematosus.

The results were published Jan. 19 in the internationally renowned medical journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD).