Cutaneous Lupus

Chronic inflammatory skin diseases constitute a heterogeneous group of pathologies. They affect the skin but also other organs (joints, lungs, muscles, etc.). Their prognosis and response to treatments is extremely variable. The discovery of prognosis factors will help to precisely guide the treatment regimen and its intensification based on individual markers. The identification of new therapeutic targets is essential to develop new innovative treatments for inflammatory skin diseases. The main objective is to identify new cellular or molecular prognostic factors associated with treatment response at 1 year in inflammatory skin diseases. The secondary objectives are a better understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic inflammatory skin diseases, the identification of new cellular, molecular and microbiological prognostic factors associated with the clinical state after 10 years of evolution and the identification of prognostic markers of drug toxicity.

This multi-site registry, centered at Duke University, will enroll pregnant women with autoimmune and rheumatologic diseases. The main goal of MADRA is to identify ways to improve the health of women with rheumatic diseases and their babies during pregnancy. Prior studies demonstrate the importance of increase inflammation prior to and during pregnancy on these outcomes. The future research will seek to better define these risk factors and to identify ways to may improve them.

Lupus is a systemic autoimmune disease that can present with many varied symptoms, including joint pain, fevers, kidney disease, and rashes. Lupus can affect anyone, but it is most common in younger women. The Duke Lupus Registry will collect information and blood samples from patients with lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus or cutaneous lupus) seen in the Duke Rheumatology clinics. The goal of this Registry is to understand how lupus changes over time so that we can improve the treatment of patients with lupus.

Although it is well known that the clinical expression and course of chronic inflammatory skin diseases are highly variable, there are insufficient epidemiological data on this, and the factors that determine the manifestation, clinical features and course are also largely unknown. There are currently no reliable markers that could predict or delineate patient subgroups to support patient management. The aim of this project is to identify clinical and molecular factors that correlate with disease, disease subtypes and progression through in-depth long-term clinical characterization of patients with chronic inflammatory skin diseases and examination of individual biomaterials.