Small airway disease associated with Sjögren's syndrome: clinico-pathological correlations

Relationships among clinical, physiological, imaging and pathological findings of small airway disease associated with Sjögren's syndrome have remained unclear.

We retrospectively studied 14 patients who underwent surgical lung biopsy and who were diagnosed with small airway disease associated with primary or secondary Sjögren's syndrome. We compared clinical, bronchoalveolar lavage, physiological, imaging and pathological findings between primary and secondary Sjögren's syndrome. We scored HRCT and pathological abnormalities and investigated correlations among physiological, HRCT and pathological data, changes in physiological parameters and in HRCT scores after two years of treatment, as well as correlations between these values and pathological scores.

Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, physiological, imaging and pathological findings of the airways did not significantly differ between primary and secondary Sjögren's syndrome. Air trapping on HRCT negatively correlated with MEF50 and MEF25. Although lymphoid cell infiltration and peribronchiolar fibrosis were the most common pathologies, constrictive change scores correlated negatively with MEF50 and MEF25, positively with air trapping scores and negatively with improvements after therapy in MEF(50), MEF(25) and air trapping.

Constrictive change was the most significant determinant of physiological and imaging presentations and of changes in these factors after therapy for small airway disease associated with Sjögren's syndrome.