Two types of inflammatory vascular disease in Sjögren's syndrome. Differential association with seroreactivity to rheumatoid factor and antibodies to Ro (SS‐A) and with hypocomplementemia

Abstract

Two types of inflammatory vascular disease (IVD) occur in Sjögren's syndrome: neutrophilic IVD (NIVD) and mononuclear IVD (MIVD). In 45 patients with Sjögren's syndrome, we examined the 2 types of IVD with respect to serologic associations. NIVD, unlike MIVD, was significantly associated with seroreactivity reflected by hyperglobulinemia (P = 0.01), rheumatoid factor (P = 0.002), antinuclear antibodies (P = 0.02), and antibodies to Ro (SS-A) (P = 0.00006), and with hypocomplementemia (P = 0.03). The differential association of the 2 types of IVD with serologic reactivity and hypocomplementemia suggests that there may be basic differences in the immunopathogenesis of these 2 forms of IVD in Sjögren's syndrome.