Background/Purpose:

Comparison of classification criteria for Sjögren’s syndrome from 2002 and 2016 in a 5 year cohort of incident patients diagnosed 2007 to 2011 from Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm County, Sweden.

The current American-European Consensus Criteria (AECC) from 2002 has been the most widely used and applied all over the world. New classification criteria for Sjögren’s Syndrome was published in 2016, designed in collaboration between ACR and EULAR. They are made up of a scoring system in which 4 points are required for classification. The weight/score is as follows:

• Labial salivary gland biopsy (?) with focal lymphocytic sialadenitis and focus score of ≥1 foci/4 mm2 – 3

• Anti-SSA/Ro positive – 3

• Ocular Staining Score ≥5 (or van Bijsterveld score ≥4) in at least 1 eye – 1

• Schirmer’s test ≤5 mm/5 minutes in at least 1 eye –.1

• Unstimulated whole saliva flow rate ≤0.1 ml/minute – 1

We wanted to examine the consistency between the different classification criteria.

Methods:

We compared a cohort of all diagnosed patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome between the years 2007 to 2011 at the Dep. of Rheumatology at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm Sweden. Data on the item Ocular Staining Score ≥5 was not available since it is not included in AECC. The cohort consisted of 199 patients all fulfilling the 2002 AECC. Another eight patients did not fulfill the criteria but were regarded as possible Sjögren syndrome under development by the rheumatologist investigating them.

Results:

196 of the 199 pSS patients also fulfilled the new criteria from 2016. The three patients who did not, only had SSB autoantibodies and no positive biopsy. Of eight patients with suspicion of Sjögren under development, three fulfilled the new criteria.

Conclusion:

The classification criteria for Sjögren´s syndrome from 2002 and 2016 are consistent. This study indicates a possibility that the new criteria may be more sensitive early in the disease development, as long as the classification is not based on autoantibody positivity against SSB.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/comparison-of-classification-criteria-for-sjogrens-syndrome-from-2002-and-2016-in-an-incident-cohort-diagnosed-2007-to-2011-from-stockholm-county-sweden/