According to a press release from EULAR, investigators have estimated that the prevalence of autoimmune diseases could be rising and may currently affect about 10% of the population in the United Kingdom. The new findings were presented by Conrad et al at the EULAR 2023 Congress and simultaneously published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. In a new study, the investigators used the electronic health records of 22 million patients in the United Kingdom to analyze trends in the occurrence of 19 autoimmune diseases over time, seeking to better understand rates of disease incidence, prevalence, and co-occurrence. The investigators found that 978,872 patients were newly diagnosed with one or more autoimmune diseases during the study period—10.2% of the total study population—and that age-standardized incidence rates of the diseases increased by 4% from 2000 to 2019. Further, the investigators discovered that autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren’s syndrome, lupus, and systemic sclerosis were commonly associated with one another. They concluded that the trend of increasing autoimmune disease prevalence over time may be the result of more awareness among patients, improved techniques for early disease detection, and socioeconomic and regional disparities.
June 09, 2023