Chapters Transcript Video George Stojan, MD - Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Geomagnetic Disturbances: A Time Series Analysis George Stojan discusses the analysis of disease activity in lupus patients. eso we initially noticed on interesting correlation between the average disease activity expressed as the physician global assessment in the Hopkins Lupus cohort with average values of the A index, which is ah, global geomagnetic index. Um, looking further into how we can study this, uh, this, uh, connection, we noticed that there was inherent period this city, meaning that both the values off, the disease activity and the values of these geomagnetic in dices were fluctuating over time on doing a simple analysis. Where we look, whether there's a correlation can lead to buy it because you may, you may find coalition. That's not there. It's simply that the two values are periodical. So we initially did that so called time Siri's analysis of the disease activity and in the Lupus cohort and we found. But there was no trend in the disease. Activity does not increase or decrease over time, but there is a significant seasonality or period this city, meaning that the disease activity fluctuates between certain values on reaches a peak every 16 years, almost half off the fluctuation of disease activity in our cohort was explained just by this period, this city on we were very surprised by that finding. The next step waas toe find a way to, uh, look at the connection between these variations and disease activity with variations and geomagnetic disturbances. Um, so statistically, we found that the best way to analyze this was to look at changes in the values of the disease, activity in Lupus and changes off the geomagnetic end. Isis, What we found was that increases in the sunspot number index are anticipated decreases in disease activity and that increases in the AP index, which was a global geomagnetic index and then proton flux index were associated with decreases in disease activity. Eso there were These were linear relationship change. Linear relationships between the changes in the to the correlations were relatively weak, but they were statistically significant, which was not unexpected, because the data in the Hopkins Lupus score heard only includes about two sun cycle. Um, remember these geomagnetic in dices have, uh, Period, this city that extends for many pardon me for many years. So having a definitive answer, we would need a much bigger data set. So, on one hand, from a physician standpoint, I think the study poses a few interesting questions the first one eyes what underlies the period. This city that we see in the disease activity of Lupus over time. Uh, is there an underlying circadian rhythm that is driving this and almost half of the fluctuation and disease activity over time could be explained simply by this circadian rhythm by this. By this periodical change, the second question is, how does the immune system relate to the environment? We previously showed that atmospheric changes, pollution and now space weather changes, meaning fluctuations and geomagnetic disturbances all lead to changes in disease activity and potential flares off systemic Lupus understanding. This can have wide ranging implications, both on design of clinical trials, interpretation of clinical trials and responsive patients to drugs. And it's a vindication for patients themselves who have known for a long time that some of their flares are triggered by environmental changes by atmospheric changes and who noticed a certain period this city, uh, in in their in their flares Created by Related Presenters
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