How to assess treatment efficacy in Sjögren's syndrome?

This article critically reviews the current views and discusses the future challenges with regard to assessing disease progression and disease activity in Sjögren's syndrome, as a decrease of disease progression and activity is what an effective Sjögren's syndrome therapy aims for. This topic has recently gained renewed attention as targeted treatment modalities have become available in primary Sjögren's syndrome, while the lack of well established outcome parameters interferes with a straightforward comparison of the outcomes of the various trials.

Recent advances in how to assess changes in disease progression and activity objectively (via repeated biopsies of salivary glands, sialometry, sialochemistry, biomarkers, secretion and composition of tears, EULAR Sjögren's Syndrome Disease Activity Index: ESSDAI) and subjectively (EULAR Sjögren's Syndrome Patient Related Index: ESSPRI) have opened new ways to reliably assess the outcome of a particular treatment.

Newly applied tools are instrumental, both for clinical research and clinical practice, in reliably judging and comparing the value of well established and newly developed therapies in Sjögren's syndrome.