Assessment of subclinical atherosclerosis in systemic lupus erythematosus: A systematic review and meta-analysis

SLE patients exhibit increased subclinical atherosclerosis compared to healthy controls. CIMT is a promising measure for cardiovascular risk evaluations because non-invasive, non-radiation-based, reproducible. Thus, CIMT can be proposed as an alternative to the reliable CP evaluation and to FMD, which is influenced by independent factors such as smoking. Future studies should focus on reducing the heterogeneity of these measures using standardized procedures.