The Clinical Relevance of Different Antiphospholipid Antibody Profiles in Pediatric Rheumatology Patients

Abstract

Abstract Background: The clinical relevance of different antiphospholipid antibody (aPL) profiles, including low level anticardiolipin (aCL) and anti-β2-glycoprotein-I (aβ2GPI) antibodies, is ill-defined in the pediatric population. Our purpose is to describe the demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics of aPL positive pediatric patients based on different aPL profiles. Findings: In this single center retrospective cohort study, based on the screening of our pediatric (age <18) rheumatology electronic medical records (2016-2022), we identified patients who had at least one “positive” aPL (lupus anticoagulant [LA], aCL IgG/M, or aβ2GPI IgG/M) result. Patients were grouped into high- (LA positive and/or aCL/aβ2GPI IgG/M > 40U [ELISA]) and low-risk (LA negative and aCL/aβ2GPI IgG/M 20-39U) aPL profiles; those with persistently positive aPL were descriptively analyzed for demographic and clinical characteristics. Of 57 included patients, 34 (59%) had initial high- and 23 (40%) had initial low-risk profiles. Based on subsequent aPL results available in 42/57 (74%) patients, 25/27 (93%) in the high-, and 7/15 (47%) in the low-risk groups remained still positive. Of these 32 patients with persistently positive aPL, moderate-to-large vessel or microvascular thrombosis occurred in nine (28%) patients with high-risk and in none with low-risk aPL profiles; non-thrombotic aPL-related manifestations were reported in 15 (47%) patients with persistent aPL positivity. Conclusion: An initial high-risk aPL profile was persistent in approximately 90% of our cohort, a third of whom had thrombosis, and half had non-thrombotic aPL manifestations. Our results underscore the need for a large-scale effort to better characterize aPL-related manifestations in pediatric patients with persistent high-risk aPL-profiles.