Clinical profile and associated factors of pulmonary involvement in primary Sjögren's syndrome

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study is to identify the clinical characteristics of primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS) patients with pulmonary involvement and the associated factors for pulmonary involvement in PSS.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed clinical features, laboratory examinations, imaging tests, pathological results and therapeutic strategy of 367 PSS patients. Comparisons were made between two subgroups: PSS with pulmonary involvement and those without. Correlation between the pathology of minor salivary gland biopsy (MSGB) and diverse features with pulmonary involvement were detected by Pearson correlation analysis and associated factors were selected by multivariate logistic regression analysis.

Results: The lung involved PSS patients had significantly higher level of inflammatory associated indexes (p<0.05). There is no significant correlation between pathology of MSGB and lung involvements. Age, elevated neutrophils level and hypoproteinemia are significantly associated with lung disease with in PSS cohort (p<0.05). As for therapeutic strategy, moderate dose prednisone (15-40mg/d) and cyclophosphamide (CTX) are mainly different between two subgroups.

Conclusions: PSS patients with pulmonary involvements show enhanced inflammation. Age, elevated neutrophils level and hypoproteinemia are independent associated with pulmonary involvements in PSS patients. For those PSS with pulmonary involvement moderate dose of prednisone and CTX were still the mainstream.

Keywords: Enfermedad pulmonar; Hipoproteinemia; Hypoproteinemia; Lung disease; Primary Sjögren's syndrome; Síndrome de Sjögren primario.