Kedves M, Kósa F, Kunovszki P, et al. - Via performing a full-populational, nationwide, retrospective study, researchers examined the incidence, prevalence, mortality and cause of death data of adult SLE patients and matched controls. The National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary yielded data of a total of 7,888 patients (median age 46.5 years; women 85%) for inclusion in the analyses. Among these patients, they created two subgroups of incident patients: the ‘All incident SLE patients’ group consisted of all incident SLE patients (4,503 patients), while the ‘Treated SLE patients’ group contained those who received relevant therapy in the first 6 months after diagnosis (2,582 patients). The two groups had incidence rate of 4.86 and 2.78 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. The standardized mortality ratio was 1.63 and 2.09 in the two groups, respectively. Infections, particularly sepsis, had the greatest positive effect on top of the extra mortality of SLE. This indicates an increased risk of infection-related death among SLE patients.