Lupus or Not? Machine Learning May Help Diagnose Lupus Early

“For those practitioners whose encounters with lupus patients are infrequent and their [knowledge] from medical school rusty, the availability of a tool that promotes the inclusion of SLE in the differential diagnosis and consequently accelerates referrals to specialists is of potential utility,” says Richard Furie, MD, chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York. “Time will tell whether busy clinicians will utilize such a tool or resort to their current practice, which in my area is to refer patients based on the results of the ANA.”

Lara C. Pullen, PhD, is a medical writer based in the Chicago area.

References

1. Adamichou C, Genitsaridi I, Nikolopoulos D, et al. Lupus or not? SLE Risk Probability Index (SLERPI): A simple, clinician-friendly machine learning-based model to assist the diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus. Ann Rheum Dis. 2021 Feb 10;annrheumdis-2020-219069. Online ahead of print.
2. Aringer M, Costenbader K, Daikh D, et al. 2019 European League Against Rheumatism/American College of Rheumatology Classification Criteria for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2019 Sep;71(9):1400–1412.