Clinical Profile of Patients with Primary Sjögren's Syndrome with Non-Identified Antinuclear Autoantibodies

Dorian Parisis; Julie Sarrand; Xavier Cabrol; Christine Delporte; Muhammad S Soyfoo

doi:10.3390/diagnostics14090935

Clinical Profile of Patients with Primary Sjögren's Syndrome with Non-Identified Antinuclear Autoantibodies

Diagnostics (Basel). 2024 Apr 30;14(9):935. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics14090935.

Authors

Dorian Parisis^{1

2}, Julie Sarrand¹, Xavier Cabrol^{1

2}, Christine Delporte², Muhammad S Soyfoo¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Rheumatology, Erasme Hospital, Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1070 Brussels, Belgium.
² Laboratory of Pathophysiological and Nutritional Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1070 Brussels, Belgium.

Abstract

Objectives-The aim of the present study was to characterize the clinical phenotype of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) with non-identified antinuclear antibodies (ANA) in comparison with that of patients with pSS with negative ANA, positive typical ANA (anti-Ro/SSA and/or La/SSB) and positive atypical ANA. Methods-We conducted an observational, retrospective monocentric study at the Erasme University Hospital (Brussels, Belgium). Two hundred and thirty-three patients fulfilling the 2002 American-European Consensus Group criteria for pSS were included in this study. The patients were subdivided according to their ANA profile and demographics. The clinical and biological data of each subgroup were compared. Moreover, the relationships between these data and the ANA profiles were determined by multiple correspondence analysis. Results-In our cohort, 42 patients (18%) presented a non-identified ANA-positive profile. No statistically significant difference could be observed between non-identified ANA patients and ANA-negative patients in terms of age and/or ESSDAI score at diagnosis. There were significantly more frequent articular manifestations, positive rheumatoid factor (RF), and the use of corticosteroids in anti-Ro/SSA-positive patients compared to ANA-negative (p ≤ 0.0001) and non-identified ANA-positive patients (p ≤ 0.01). However, a significantly higher proportion of RF positivity and corticosteroid treatment was observed in non-identified ANA-positive patients compared to ANA-negative patients (p < 0.05). Conclusions-For the first time to our knowledge, our study has characterized the clinical phenotype of patients with pSS with non-identified ANA at diagnosis. The non-identified ANA-positive patients featured mostly a clinical phenotype similar to that of the ANA-negative patients. On the other hand, the non-identified ANA-positive patients were mainly distinguished from the ANA-negative patients by a greater proportion of RF positivity and the need for corticosteroid use due to articular involvement.

Keywords: Sjögren’s syndrome; autoantibodies; corticosteroids; rheumatoid factor; systemic manifestations.

Grants and funding

This research was funded the EU H2020 contract HarmonicSS (H2020-SC1-2016-RTD/731944), Fonds Erasme, Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique—FNRS (grant J.0053.20). D.P. is a Research Fellow of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique—FNRS.