Table 1.
Baseline clinical and renal pathological features of lupus nephritis patients with immunosuppressive therapy.
Fig 1.
Cumulative complete renal response rate for 3 years after induction therapy.
Cumulative complete renal response rate is not significantly different among the four treatment groups (p = 0.2). CR, Complete renal response; IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil.
Fig 2.
Relapse free rate for 3 years from study enrollment.
There was no significant difference among the four treatment groups. CR, Complete renal response; IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil.
Fig 3.
Relapse free rate for 3 years after CR achievement.
There was no significant difference among the four treatment groups. CR, Complete renal response; IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil.
Fig 4.
Percentage of patients with increasing damage accrual for 3 years.
A higher percentage of patients on TAC had increasing SDI for 3 years compared to those on monthly IVCY (p = 0.04). Montly-IVCY vs ELNT-IVCY, p = 0.55; ELNT-IVCY vs MMF; p = 0.11; MMF vs TAC, p = 0.63; monthly-IVCY vs MMF, p = 0.10, ELNT-IVCY vs TAC, p = 0.32. SDI, Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index; IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil.
Fig 5.
% Change of eGFR from baseline.
There was statistically no significant difference among 4 groups (p = 0.3). IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate.
Fig 6.
Component of SDI and renal damage at 3 years.
Percentage of corticosteroid-related or not corticosteroid-related damage of SDI in 4 groups was shown (p = 0.05). TAC group has higher corticosteroid-related damage than IVCY groups.
Fig 7.
Cumulative PSL dose for 3 years.
Cumulative PSL dose was shown. There was no significant difference among 4 groups (p = 0.53) but patients with TAC tended to have a higher cumulative dose of PSL. PSL, prednisolone; IVCY, intravenous cyclophosphamide; ELNT, Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial; TAC, Tacrolimus; MMF, mycophenolate mofetil.
Table 2.
Multivariate analysis for predictors of patients with increasing SDI over 3 years.
Table 3.
Adverse events during 3 years.