Novel Pharmacologic Therapies in the Treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) is an auto immune disease that affects primarily women, es pecially those of reproductive age. Lupus is a proto typic organ non specific autoimmune disease that may affect any organ in the body resulting in displaying a broad spectrum of clinical and immu nological mani festations. The pathogenesis of lupus involves a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors and the adaptive and innate immune systems. Defects in central and peripheral tolerance, increased antigenic load, excess T cell help, B cell hyperactivity, autoantibody production and cytokine imbalance, ultimately lead to immune complex formation and complement activation causing immunologically me diated organ damage, culminating in premature death. There is an urgent need for the development of novel agents since many patients are refractory to traditional