An intriguing cause of chronic diarrhea – Protein-losing enteropathy as the presenting manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune inflammatory disease. It presents with a myriad of clinical manifestations affecting every other organ system in the human body. The gastrointestinal (GI) system is one of the most commonly affected systems and it involves any part of the GI tract with an incidence ranging from 1.3% to 27.5%. GI manifestations as a presenting feature of SLE are unusual. Chronic diarrhea due to protein-losing enteropathy as the presenting manifestation of SLE is very rare, and a diagnosis of SLE should be kept in mind when other systemic manifestations are absent. Hence, we report a 29-year-old female with chronic diarrhea as the main manifestation of SLE.