Treatment regimen and follow-up
proteinuria, pruritis, hematuria, malar rash, mucocutaneous, alopecia, TG, oral ulcer
RENAL, DISEASE, HEMATURIA, PROLIFERATIVE, ALOPECIA, ORAL ULCER, ERUPTION
All studied c-SLE patients had proliferative LN and received steroids and MMF regimen: (a) induction phase (three daily intravenous pulse methylprednisolone doses (500 mg/mThe studied patients were randomized into two groups: (1) HCQ group: Thirty patients received HCQ at a dose (5 mg/kg/day) and (2) placebo group: Thirty patients received a placebo (sugar pills like the shape and package of HCQ pills that were prepared in Tanta Faculty of Pharmacy). At initial disease presentation and throughout treatment follow-up at 6 and 12 months, all patients were subjected to the following: history taking, clinical examination: thorough general and mucocutaneous examination (malar rash, pigmentation, pruritis, eruption, alopecia, and oral ulcer), ocular examination (visual field, which is the most sensitive subjective investigation for the diagnosis of HCQ retinopathy done by confrontational visual field exam, visual acuity; using Snellen test or Random E chart and fundus examination using fundus auto-fluorescence (AF) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) for detection of any lesion in the early stage of disease). Laboratory investigations included (24 h proteinuria, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, cholesterol, triglyceride (TG), anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA), complements C3 and C4). Renal biopsies have been done for all cases as they met one of the following criteria: increasing serum creatinine and proteinuria of ≥ 0.5 g/24 h with hematuria or cellular casts that were evaluated according to (the ISN/RPS) grading system [