We sincerely regret the fact that we missed the article by Drenkard and colleagues from Mexico City while preparing our recently published report. When we conducted our literature search using PubMed (terms searched were lupus, SLE, mortality, thrombocytopenia, Hispanic, Latino, and Latin America) this article was not found and we, unfortunately, had no independent recollection of the authors' work, which was published several years ago (1). In their report, Drenkard et al identify thrombocytopenia as having a negative impact on survival. However, we would like to point out that our recently published article has been misinterpreted: our data do not support the statement that thrombocytopenia is a negative prognostic factor in Hispanic patients (it is in all patients, regardless of their ethnic group). Rather, we pointed out that ours was the first study to document a relationship between Hispanic (Texan) ethnicity and thrombocytopenia. Given that the study from Mexico included, as the authors point out in their letter, a rather homogenous ethnic and socioeconomic population, they could not have explored the association of this manifestation with Hispanic ethnicity, since they lacked the proper comparison group or groups, which we had. We also would like to point out that our earlier work (unrelated to LUpus in MInorities, NAture versus nurture [LU-MINA]) has also been misinterpreted, since we identified thrombocytopenia and African American ethnicity as independent predictors of mortality in lupus (2).
As we continue to examine the LUMINA cohort database, the only cohort in the US with a sizable Hispanic population (3), we will try to expand our searches in order to avoid missing other important articles originating in Latin America, so that proper credit can be given to the work done there. Moreover, given that Hispanics now constitute the largest and fastest-growing US minority, and that the largest segment of the Hispanic population in the US has its roots in Mexico (4), referring to work previously done in Mexico is even more important.