Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Pregnancy

AN understanding of the interrelations of pregnancy and systemic lupus erythematosus is of considerable clinical importance, particularly since the disease occurs most frequently in women during the reproductive age. The diagnosis has been facilitated by the description of the L.E.-cell phenomenon by Hargraves and his colleagues1 (1948). Thereafter, the clinical features became more widely recognized, and it became easier to differentiate systemic lupus erythematosus occurring in pregnancy from the other causes of toxemia of pregnancy.Although a number of isolated case reports have been documented2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 we were able to find relatively few reports of larger series of pregnancies in patients . . .