Abstract:

Objectives: The study aimed to reveal the clinical, laboratory and serological features of patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) followed in a referral center and to demonstrate the possible differences of the patients with recurrent thrombosis. Materials and Methods: The data of 43 patients with APS, who applied to our center between January 2010 and January 2019, were scrutinized retrospectively. Clinical, laboratory and serological features of the patients were recorded. The patients with and without recurrent thrombosis were compared. P-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Thirty-three out of 43 patients (76.6%) were female. Fourteen (32.6%) patients were classified as primary APS and 29 (67.4%) patients as secondary APS. Acute cutaneous lupus findings (53.5%), livedo reticularis (18.6%), Raynaud’s phenomenon (18.6%), and thrombocytopenia (30.2%) were the most common clinical findings, which were not included in the classification criteria. Among the females with APS, pregnancy complications occurred in 45.5%. Arterial and/or venous thrombotic events were observed in 40 (93.0%) patients. Venous and arterial thrombosis were found in 76.7% and 32.6% of the patients, respectively. Recurrent thrombosis was detected in 20 (50.0%) of the patients with thrombosis, nine of whom (20.9%) were under anticoagulant treatment. In patients with recurrent thrombosis, the disease duration was longer (p=0.004), arterial thrombosis (p=0.023) and low serum C4 levels (p=0.025) were more frequent. Conclusion: In this cohort of the patients with APS, we showed that the disease duration was longer, the history of arterial thrombosis and low serum C4 levels were more frequent in the patients with recurrent thrombosis than in the patients without recurrent thrombosis.

Keywords: