The clinical and immunological picture of primary sjogren’s syndrome in Qatar

Abstract EN

Background : Primary Sjogren’s Syndrom(SS) is an autoimmune disease with diverse clinical presentation.

This study was conducted to describe the clinical and immuno¬logical picture of SS in patients seen in the main hospital in Qatar.

Methods : We reviewed all the medical records of pa¬tients seen at Hamad medical corporation between 1997 and 2002 who met the classification criteria for primary SS.

Eighteen patient met these criteria.

Results : Female to male ratio were 9:1.

The average age at the time of diagnosis was 40.6 (range from 24-61) with a period of 2.3 years before the diagnosis was estab-lished.

Dry eyes and / or dry mouth were the presenting symptoms in 66 %.

Parotid swelling alone or with other symptoms were the presenting symptoms in 17 %.

.Renal tubular acidosis were seen in 17 % and fatigue in 44 %.

Shirmer test was positive in 85 % and lip biopsy in 80 % of patients in whom the tests were done.

Anti-SS-A/Ro were positive in 71 % and Anti-SS-B / La were positive in 50 %.

Conclusion : Our results are almost similar to other studies in the west.