Development and Pilot Testing of the Cutaneous Lupus Screening Tool

Area of Science:

• Dermatology
• Epidemiology
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) significantly impacts patient morbidity and quality of life.
• Existing tools lack reliability for confirming CLE cases in epidemiological studies without a dermatologist's examination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the performance of the Cutaneous Lupus Screening (CLUSE) tool in identifying CLE cases.
• To compare the CLUSE tool's accuracy in individuals with and without dermatologist-diagnosed CLE.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving 117 participants (24 CLE cases, 93 non-CLE controls) aged 18+.
• Utilized the 15-question, self-administered CLUSE tool, derived via the Delphi method.
• Analyzed sensitivity, specificity, and performance of nine diagnostic algorithms.

Main Results:

• The CLUSE tool demonstrated statistically significant differences in scores between CLE and non-CLE groups (P < .001).
• Algorithm 9, designed for general CLE diagnosis, achieved 87.5% sensitivity and 96.8% specificity.
• The tool proved effective in distinguishing between patients with and without CLE.

Conclusions:

• The CLUSE tool, combining questions and potentially photographs, accurately identifies CLE cases with high sensitivity and specificity.
• This brief, self-administered questionnaire offers a low-burden method for CLE identification.
• Future research will utilize the CLUSE tool for large-scale epidemiological data collection on CLE.