Cumulative Burden of Glucocorticoid-related Adverse Events in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Findings from a 12-year Longitudinal Study

Objective The aim of this population-based study is to examine the adverse events (AE) associated with longitudinal systemic glucocorticoid (GC) use among an ethnic Chinese systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) cohort. Methods Our study subjects were patients with newly diagnosed SLE aged 18 and older who received at least 1 prescription of systemic GC between 2001 and 2012 from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). The earliest prescription date of systemic GC for each subject was defined as the index date. For each subject, we calculated the average prednisolone-equivalent dose and the medication possession ratio (MPR) of GC use every 90 days for each patient after the index date. Patients with a diagnosis of AE (defined by the International Classification of Diseases-9-Clinical Modification diagnosis code) during the followup were also identified from the NHIRD. Generalized estimating equations adjusted for propensity score were applied to examine the association between longitudinal GC use and risks of prespecified AE (musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, ophthalmologic, infectious, cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, metabolic, and dermatologic diseases). Results We identified 11,288 patients with SLE (mean followup: 6.28 yrs). Higher doses and higher MPR of GC were associated with increased risk of osteonecrosis [adjusted OR (aOR) 2.87–9.09]. Similar results were found regarding the risk of osteoporosis (aOR 1.71–3.67), bacterial infection (aOR 2.12–3.89), Cushingoid syndrome (aOR 6.51–62.03), and sleep disorder (aOR 1.42–3.59). Conclusion To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that the dose and intensity of longitudinal use of GC were both associated with risk of AE among a nationwide Asian SLE cohort.