Rhupus-syndrome in routine clinical practice of systemic lupus erythematosus

Rekalov D.H.¹, Danyuk I.O.²

• ¹Zaporizhzhya state medical university
• ²КЗ «Запорізька обласна клінічна лікарня» Запорізької обласної ради

Summary. Rhupus-syndrome is a rare autoimmune disease, which characterized by a combination of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) symptoms and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Analysis of modern scientific research shows that Rhupus-syndrome is a separate cross-autoimmune disease, but not a manifestation of polyarthritis in patients with SLE. Our article presents a clinical case of Rhupus-syndrome in a young woman with symptoms of polyarthritis (erosive type according to MRI results) in combination with typical skin lesions in SLE (photosensitization, lupus butterfly, mouth ulcers), and the presence of antinuclear antibodies, antibodies to ds-DNA with elevated levels of C-reactive protein and rheumatoid factor in the blood. Thus, the patient had symptoms that met to ACR/EULAR (2010) criteria for RA and ACR (1997) for SLE. For long-term control of the disease, the most optimal was using of methylprednisolone in a dose of 6 mg per day orally in combination with methotrexate at a dose of 20 mg per week orally.