Table 8.

Explorative analysis of potential predictors of cardiovascular events during follow-up in systemic sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus patients ^a

	SSc and SLE (n = 129)
Variable	Beta coefficient	Unadjusted hazard ratio (95% CI)	P value
SSc versus SLE	-0.173	0.84 (0.33 to 2.10)	0.712
Age (per 5 years)	0.262	1.30 (1.10 to 1.54)	0.003
Male sex	2.833	17.00 (5.99 to 48.22)	<0.001
Carotid and femoral artery plaque
Group 3 (CP and FP) versus group 1 (no plaque)	2.595	13.40 (2.99 to 59.95)	<0.001
Group 3 (CP and FP) versus group 2 (CP or FP)	2.672	14.47 (2.51 to 83.55)	0.003
Group 2 (CP or FP) versus group 1 (no plaque)	-0.077	0.93 (0.12 to 7.39)	0.942
Arterial hypertension	1.678	5.35 (1.91 to 15.02)	<0.001
Nicotine use (per 5 pack-years)	0.143	1.15 (1.04 to 1.28)	0.005
Coronary heart disease	2.592	13.36 (4.67 to 38.20)	<0.001
Age at diagnosis (per 5 years)	0.075	1.20 (1.04 to 1.39)	0.014
C-reactive protein (per mg/dl)	0.220	1.25 (0.98 to 1.59)	0.079

CI, confidence interval; CP, carotid artery plaque; FP, femoral artery plaque; SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus; SSc, systemic sclerosis.

^aOnly variables suggested for multivariate Cox regression analysis are reported; complete report available in Additional file 3.