Leukopenia and Severe Infection in Patients With SLE

Conclusions

Leukopenia, neutropenia, and lymphopenia were common findings in SLE. However, in SLE, leukopenia and neutropenia were usually transient conditions, whereas the incidence of persistent lymphopenia can be found in high proportion. Although WBCs have a major role to prevent infection, our study could not demonstrate the association of leukopenia and severe infection. Cyclophosphamide was the only independent risk factor of severe infection in SLE.