The goal of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of relevant articles to determine the incidence of 19 neuropsychiatric disorders in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE), as defined by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) in 1999. A search of the literature from April 1999 to March 2018 yielded papers with a sample size of at least 20 patients that investigated neuropsychiatric symptoms in cSLE patients using 1999 ACR Case Definitions. Case reports, short case series, reviews, papers that did not utilise the 1999 ACR case criteria, and articles with adult SLE patients were all eliminated. The Loney quality evaluation was used to evaluate the studies’ methodological quality. There were 143 items found in total, with 9 of them being included. 351 of 1463 cSLE patients had 869 neuropsychiatric cSLE episodes. Headache, seizure disorders, cognitive dysfunction, mood disorder, psychosis, cerebrovascular disease, acute confusional state, movement disorder, anxiety disorder, aseptic meningitis, mononeuropathy single/multiplex, myelopathy, demyelinating syndrome, cranial neuropathy, polyneuropathy, Guillain-Barré syndrome, autonomic disorder, plexopathy, and myasthenia gravis were among the findings for each syndrome.
Neuropsychiatric symptoms are common in people with cSLE. Headaches, seizures, cognitive impairment, mood problems, and psychosis were the most common. Identifying the prevalence of each neuropsychiatric symptom in cSLE may help clinicians become more aware of these potentially deadly and debilitating diseases.
