Figure 1.

Flow diagram of selection of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from 2002 to 2011. Dotted two-way arrow indicates comparison of early and late death. Meeting ≥4 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria was used as a cut-off for classification of SLE patients according to the criteria definition. Abbreviations: N – number of patients; M – number of males; F – number of females; dg – diagnosis; f/u – follow-up; y – years; SLE + overlap – patients with a diagnosis of SLE and another systemic autoimmune disease.