What is new in Sjögren’s Syndrome (EULAR 2013)

Hendrika Bootsma (The Netherlands) at EULAR 2013 Madrid, June 14.

Diagnosis / classification criteria

Criteria must be clear, easy to apply and specific. “The previous AECG classification criteria for Sjögren’s syndrome had been criticized for including subjective tests (symptoms of oral and ocular dryness), physiologic measures that lack specificity, and objective tests that are not diagnostically equivalent. Therefore, the Sjögren’s International Collaborative Clinical Alliance Research Groups proposed an alternative criteria set composed of only objective measures (including lip biopsy). The level of agreement between the preliminary American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria and the AECG criteria was high when all objective tests were available to define the AECG criteria but low when subjective tests were allowed to replace the objective tests.” (Bootsma, H., Spijkervet, F. K. L., Kroese, F. G. M. and Vissink, A. (2013), Toward new classification criteria for Sjögren’s syndrome?. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 65: 21–23. doi: 10.1002/art.37701)