Lupus is an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack the body’s organs. In severe cases, organs damage and failure can occur. Over 90 percent of people with lupus are women between the ages of 15 and 45.
Historically, lupus caused people to die young, primarily from kidney failure. Today, with careful treatment, 80 to 90 percent of people with lupus can expect to live a normal lifespan.
“We have found that with treatment, Lupus patients are able to live longer, said Dr. Olivia Ghaw, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “They are able to live with less disability and morbidity.”
Some people have a mild case, others moderate and some severe, which tends to be more difficult to treat and control. For people who have a severe flare-up, there is a greater chance that their lupus may be life-threatening.
People with non-organ threatening aspects of lupus can look forward to a normal lifespan if they:
- Follow the instructions of their physician
- Take their medication(s) as prescribed
- Know when to seek help for unexpected side effects of a medication or a new manifestation of their lupus
Although some people with lupus have severe recurrent attacks that result in hospitalization, most people with lupus rarely require hospitalization. Especially those who maintain a healthy lifestyle.
New research brings unexpected findings each year. The progress made in treatment and diagnosis during the last decade has been greater than that made over the past 100 years. It is therefore a sensible idea to maintain control of a disease that tomorrow may be curable.
The question of whether you can die from lupus is complicated. The short answer is yes, but survival rates are dramatically better than in the past. The 5- and 10-year survival rates for people with lupus improved from less than 50 percent in the 1950s to more than 90 percent in the 1980s.7 Today, the 10-year survival rate is 90 percent and the 15-year survival rate is 80 percent. These better outcomes are thought to be the result of earlier diagnosis, and improvements in lupus-specific treatments.
In the past, death tended to be the result of the disease itself. Now, death is more often due to a heart attack, stroke, or side effects of the drugs taken to control lupus, such as a fatal infection in someone taking immunosuppressants
More than 60 years ago, the survival rate for lupus for people 5 to 10 years after diagnosis was about 50%. Now, it is more than 90%, but this wasn’t a steady incline over the decades. For a few years, survival actually dropped, but the lupus survival rate has been increasing steadily since 1999.
The highest mortality rates from lupus are among those who are older, women, and people of African American or Hispanic ancestry. Higher survival rates are found among patients with lupus who live in the eastern and northern parts of the United States, even among people who fall into the higher mortality groups. The most common cause of death among people with lupus is heart (cardiovascular) disease, followed by infections.
