[Quantitative assessment of labial salivary gland sclerosis in patients with diffuse scleroderma (author's transl)]

Biopsies of the lips were performed on 27 patients (7 male and 20 female; mean age, 58 years) with diffuse scleroderma and on 10 healthy subjects serving as controls. The degree of intralobular sclerosis in labial salivary glands was measured on tissue sections by an automated morphometric analysis technique. Collagenous compared with controls. It was independent from the type of cell infiltrating the gland and from the evolution potential of the disease, but it correlated with its duration and seemed to be specific to scleroderma.