[Clinical features of male SLE patients--summary of our 22 cases]

We investigated clinical features of our 22 male SLE patients with main respect to 11 articles of ARA criteria for diagnosis of SLE (1982). As for skin lesions, 14 cases (64%) manifested wide spread discoid lupus erythematosus as their first symptoms, however, rather rare lesions could be seen as follows: 3 cases with nodular cutaneous lupus mucinosis, 1 with vesiculobullous LE. As to visceral manifestations, renal involvements could be seen in 11 cases (50%), among which 6 showed nephrotic syndromes. In immunological examinations, 1 case revealed C4A deficiency. The clinical tendency of male SLE cases has not been settled by now, for the disease is uncommon in men. Each of our 22 cases manifested a variety of features respectively, indicating that rather atypical cases as SLE can be more often seen in males than females. In addition, many of our cases showed remarkable changes clinically during their courses, which suggests that we should follow them carefully from now.