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Michelle Petri, MD, MPH is the director of the Hopkins Lupus Center and Professor of Medicine. The Hopkins Lupus Cohort is a longitudinal cohort of SLE patients funded by NIH; it currently includes over 2,000 patients. The major outcome measures are prediction of disease activity, prevention of organ damage, and improvement in quality of life. The cohort has made important contributions to the understanding of corticosteroid toxicity in SLE, the preventive role of hydroxychloroquine and the pathogenesis of accelerated atherosclerosis. The center also participates in clinical trials (playing an important role in the development of belimumab for SLE) and NIH-funded studies of the genetics of SLE, autoantibodies in SLE, and single cell studies of lupus kidney biopsies (the AMP project).
We review the available literature, with a particular focus on the recent findings in the Hopkins Lupus Cohort, regarding the clinical utility of hydroxychloroquine blood levels in helping to clarify some of the issues regarding retinopathy, how best to dose this medication, and medication adherence.
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