Prevalence of cutaneous warts in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: a systematic review

Abstract

The aim of this study was to review and evaluate systematically the scientific evidence on the relationship between systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and cutaneous warts (CW) caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. With strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, we extensively searched the PUBMED, BVS (Virtual Health Library), and SCOPUS databases for the studies that evaluated the prevalence of CW in patients with SLE. Secondary references were additionally obtained from the selected articles. Only four articles met the research criteria and showed a higher frequency of CW in SLE patients compared to healthy controls. One of them highlighted about rheumatoid factor (RF) in the sera of patients with SLE and found an inverse correlation between the occurrence of warts and RF autoantibody. Moreover, most of the selected articles showed that the presence of CW did not correlate with the use of immunosuppressive drugs. Therefore, these findings suggest that the prevalence of CW in patients with SLE is probably high due to the defects in immune mechanisms, independently of immunosuppressive drugs.