Autoimmune thyroid diseases in a large group of Hungarian patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on relatively small populations of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) suggested an association between pSS and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT). As some findings in the literature regarding the relationship between pSS and thyroid disease are contradictory, and there is little information on the sequence of pSS and HT, we conducted a study with a population of patients with pSS that was about three times larger than previously studied populations. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of HT and Graves' disease (GD) in patients with pSS and to assess the sequence of pSS and autoimmune thyroid diseases.

METHODS: A total of 479 patients with pSS were retrospectively studied. Thyroid ultrasound and scintigraphy were performed, and serum thyrotropin, free triiodothyronine, free thyroxine, antithyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb), and anti-thyroglobulin autoantibody (TgAb) measurements were carried out. Solitary thyroid nodules were investigated by fine-needle aspiration biopsy.

RESULTS: Thyroid dysfunction was found in 95 patients (21.25%). Thirty of these patients had HT and 18 had GD. HT predated pSS in eight patients, developed at approximately the same time in seven patients, and followed pSS in 15 patients. Almost all (90%) patients with HT had persistently elevated serum TgAb or TPOAb titers.

CONCLUSIONS: An association between HT and pSS was found based on the fact that the frequency of HT was greater among pSS patients (6.26%) than in the general population (1-2%). In contrast, no association between GD and pSS was found. We noted that both HT and GD can appear either before or after the onset of pSS. Since most cases of pSS predate the appearance of autoimmune thyroid diseases it is important to determine if pSS is a predisposing factor for the development of autoimmune thyroiditis.