associated with poor prognosis, increased mortality, and an earlier time of onset of several criteria, in particular malar rash and nephritis. This could be related to thrombotic events in kidney, vasculitis, arterial occlusions and coexistent thrombocytopenia. Given the notable increase of OR between general SLE (ORSLE = 1.40) and SLE patients with APS (OR = 2.17), rs2476601 could be a surrogate of lupus severity at least in European ancestry. It is noteworthy that although availability of data for specific autoantibodies, in particular aCL, were limited in our cohorts, there was no evidence of heterogeneity or inconsistency in risk ratio estimates between cohorts or any evidence of site-specific confounding effect. Further studies are necessary to confirm or refute this possibility.
