WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) treatment for discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) is associated with a lower risk for developing cardiovascular and cardiometabolic complications, according to a study published online April 17 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Anjana Srikumar, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues evaluated whether HCQ initiation in adults with isolated DLE is associated with lower five-year cardiometabolic and cardiovascular risk. The analysis included 106 adults with isolated DLE from a single center (including 60 HCQ users), as well as 2,260 propensity-matched pairs with isolated DLE, identified from the TriNetX database, who were matched based on HCQ use or no use.
The researchers found that in the single-center cohort, HCQ use was associated with a significantly lower likelihood of developing hyperlipidemia (23.3 versus 47.8 percent), peripheral artery disease (1.7 versus 17.4 percent), angina (3.3 versus 26.1 percent), and coronary artery disease (CAD; 10.0 versus 26.1 percent), regardless of DLE extent. In the TriNetX cohort, HCQ use was associated with a significantly lower risk for hypertension (14.1 versus 17.3 percent), hyperlipidemia (8.4 versus 15.1 percent), type 2 diabetes (4.3 versus 6.3 percent), stroke (1.0 versus 2.3 percent), and CAD (4.2 versus 5.9 percent).
"All patients with skin lupus will benefit if we can shift broader clinical perspectives of the disease and develop clear guidelines that address how it harms health beyond the skin," senior author Jun Kang, M.D., also from Johns Hopkins, said in a statement.
