The Importance of Minor Salivary Gland Biopsy in Sjogren Syndrome Diagnosis and the Clinicopathological Correlation

WOS: 000376535000001PubMed ID: 27136104Objective: Minor salivary gland biopsy is one of the objective tests used in the diagnosis of Sjogren syndrome. The aim of our study was to compare the clinical and laboratory data of primary and secondary Sjogren syndrome cases with a lymphocyte score 3 and 4 in the minor salivary gland biopsy. Material and Method: Data from a total of 2346 consecutive minor salivary gland biopsies were retrospectively evaluated in this study. Clinical and autoantibody characteristics of 367 cases with lymphocyte score 3 or 4 and diagnosed with primary or secondary Sjogren syndrome were compared. Results: There was no difference between lymphocyte score 3 and 4 primary Sjogren syndrome patients in terms of dry mouth, dry eye symptoms and Schirmer test results but Anti-Ro and Antinuclear Antibody positivity was statistically significantly higher in cases with lymphocyte score 4 (p= 0.025, p= 0.001). Anti-Ro test results were also found to be statistically significantly higher in secondary Sjogren syndrome patients with lymphocyte score 4 (p= 0.048). Conclusion: In this study, the high proportion of cases with negative autoantibody but positive lymphocyte score is significant in terms of showing the contribution of minor salivary gland biopsy to Sjogren syndrome diagnosis. Lymphocyte score 3 and 4 cases were found to have similar clinical findings but a difference regarding antibody positivity in primary Sjogren syndrome. We believe that cases with lymphocyte score 4 may be Sjogren syndrome cases whose clinical manifestations are relatively established and higher autoantibody levels are therefore found