Sjogren's syndrome - Highlights
Sjogren's syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune, chronic inflammatory disease affecting exocrine glands, primarily the salivary and lacrimal glands.
It is characterized by infiltration of T-cells in these glands, causing destruction and functional impairment.
Other exocrine glands affected may include those in the gastrointestinal tract, skin and vagina.
📝Here are some "Highlights" or a high level overview of Sjogren’s syndrome
Primary Sjogren's syndrome 👉 Only the salivary and lacrimal glands are affected, causing xerostomia (dry mouth) and xerophthalmia (dry eyes). This is also called "Sicca syndrome"
Secondary Sjogren's syndrome 👉 Apart from Sicca syndrome, the patient may also have other associated auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and polymyositis.
SS is known to be an auto-immune disease, where the body's immune cells are unable to differentiate between foreign and self antigens.
SS predominantly affects females, with a 9:1 female to male ratio.
The primary oral manifestation in SS is xerostomia or dry mouth. Most of the other oral symptoms are due to xerostomia.
Chronic dryness and inflammation causes keratosis of the ocular surface. Hence this condition is called "Keratoconjuctivitis sicca" (kerato refers to keratosis, conjuctivitis refers to inflammation of the conjunctiva and sicca means dry).
🤔Knowing the manifestations and how Sjogren’s syndrome actually manifests in individuals can be overwhelming. There have been many theories that have been speculated in order to explain it’s pathogenesis.
👨⚕️Diagnosing Sjogren’s syndrome in a patient can be tricky and is not straight forward. The American-European consensus group in 2016 proposed a bunch of criteria in order to aid diagnosing this condition.
📽In fact, I created 2 videos on Sjogren’s syndrome - one explaining it’s pathogenesis and the other explaining the clinical features, histopathology and diagnosis. Learning a complex topic like Sjogren’s is a lot more fun when done visually.
🎥 Preview Video!
🔎You could dig deeper into the topic
In fact, we have divided this topic into two for the sake of brevity and delve a lot more deeper into this topic in our cheatsheets/notes 👇
Sjogren's Syndrome - Pathogenesis
Genetics
Trigger factors
Molecular mimicry
Events leading to the disease
Sjogren's syndrome
Clinical features
Sialography
Histopathology features
Diagnosis 👉 American-European consensus group (2016)
Treatment
You could read in detail about Sjogren’s syndrome with our Revision Ninja - Oral Pathology and Medicine Course bundle!
💡Note
Apart from Notes, you could also get access to numerous MCQs and Videos with English captions/subtitles on various topics in Oral Pathology and Medicine.
📚Other study resources on HackDentistry!
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