Many people with Sjögren’s have other autoimmune diseases too – and 15% receive no medication

Many people in the US who have Sjögren’s syndrome have additional autoimmune diseases, do not receive anti-rheumatic medication and about half are diagnosed by a healthcare professional other than a rheumatologist, according to a study presented at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual European Congress of Rheumatology.
Researchers used a database to identify 11,385 adults in the US with more than one inpatient or over two outpatient visits due to Sjögren’s syndrome over a five-year period. Analysis of the data showed that 90% were women with an average age of 55 years.

Key findings

• Initial diagnosis was by:
– Rheumatologist (39%)
– Internal medicine specialists (14.2%)
– Family practitioners (13.9%)
– Ophthalmologist (6.1%)

• 54% had an additional autoimmune disease:
– 17.5% rheumatoid arthritis
– 14.5% systemic lupus erythematosus
– 6.4% unspecified inflammatory polyarthropathy

• Other comorbidities:
– Hypertension (37.1%)
– Osteoarthritis (30.9%)
– Hyperlipidaemia (29.6%)
– Mental disorders (25%)

• Anti-rheumatic medications prescribed:
– A low dose steroid (21.3%)
– Hydroxychloroquine (21%)
– Topical cyclosporine (15%)
– Cevimeline (14.9%)
– Biologic (6.1%)
– A synthetic immunomodulator (37.3%)
– 20mg prednisone equivalent (7.1%)

• Of the patients with comorbid autoimmune diseases:
– 0.3% received a biologic
– 19.3% received a synthetic immunomodulator
– 5.5% received 20mg prednisone equivalent

• No medications were prescribed to 15.1% of people studied

• Health care resource utilization rose by 1.2 times higher than before diagnosis

• Total costs of medical care increased to 1.4 times higher

“Systemic disease-modifying therapies were used in a minority of Sjögren’s syndrome patients and most of these patients had other autoimmune diagnoses, suggesting there may be a large unmet need in patients with Sjögren’s syndrome,” the researchers conclude.

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Image credit: Martin Fisch