Clinical characteristics of children with positive anti-SSA/SSB antibodies

This study aimed to characterize the manifestations of clinical symptoms and signs, primary rheumatic diseases, and other autoantibodies in pediatric patients with positive anti-SSA and/or anti-SSB antibodies. Subjects under age 18 with positive anti-SSA and/or anti-SSB antibodies were screened and enrolled in a tertiary hospital in Taiwan. Data were collected via medical records,including age, gender, onset of the primary rheumatic disease, clinical symptoms and signs, and the medication used. Schirmer test for Sjögren's syndrome (SS) screening was performed in all enrolled patients. Among twenty enrolled subjects, seventeen of them had systemic lupus erythematosus; four of them were diagnosed as SS with positive Schirmer test. In addition to antinuclear antibodies and anti-DNA antibodies, other common autoantibodies were anti-RNP antibodies (50 %) and anti-Sm antibodies(30 %). The most common symptoms were arthritis (60 %)followed by malar rash (40 %). In conclusion, we observed that a low proportion of childhood SS (4/20) exists in our patients with positive SSA and/or anti-SSB antibodies. It is suggested that clinicians should focus more on the clinical symptoms in these patients, rather than undertaking invasive diagnostic interventions to rule out Sjögren's syndrome.