Does high dose immunosuppression alleviate the need for surgery in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and cardiac tamponade?
In patients with SLE, pleuritis, anti-nucleosome antibodies, and effusion size predict tamponade, which can often be managed medically with high-dose immunosuppression to avoid surgery.
Pleuritis, anti-nucleosome antibody and size of pericardial effusion predicted development of tamponade. High dose immunosuppression (methylprednisolone and IV cyclophosphamide) alleviated need for surgery in majority.
Goswami et al. (2017) studied this question.