Background/Purpose:

To investigate the clinical manifestations in patients with early primary Sjögren¡¦s syndrome based on different severity score under salivary gland ultrasonography.

Methods:

We enrolled 44 newly diagnosed patients with early primary Sjögren¡¦s syndrome at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan (Figure 1). We divided patients into two groups according to baseline salivary gland ultrasonography grade scores. Severe group was defined score 2-3 and mild group was score 0-1. Student¡¦s t-test was used to compare the two groups.

Results:

The mean age of patients were 50.02 years old. The mean duration of sicca symptoms were 0.86 years. The mean score of ESSPRI and ESSDAI were 16.98 and 3.35, respectively. Higher rheumatoid factor titer was statistically significant in severe group(p=0.04). Higher titer of autoantibodies such as anti-SSA/SSB, anti-dsDNA and IgG were found in severe group but not reached significant. However, ESSDAI and ESSPRI was not associated with sonography severity score.  

Conclusion: ¡@

Only higher rheumatoid factor titer is associated with higher salivary gland ultrasonography grade score. However, severe ultrasonography grade score was not related to clinical disease activity such as ESSDAI. Previous study showed salivary gland ultrasonography as a good diagnostic tool of Sjögren¡¦s syndrome and as a predictor of clinical activity in Sjogren’s syndrome, but the disease mean duration is around 7.5 years. Our study enrolled patients with early primary Sjögren¡¦s syndrome with mean disease duration less than one year. The clinical manifestations are not associated with salivary ultrasonography severity score in early primary Sjögren¡¦s syndrome.