Two types of inflammatory vascular disease in Sjögren's syndrome. Differential association with seroreactivity to rheumatoid factor and antibodies to Ro (SS-A) and with hypocomplementemia.

Two types of inflammatory vascular disease (IVD) occur in Sjögren's syndrome: neutrophilic IVD (NIVD) and mononuclear IVD (MIVD). In 45 patients with Sjögren's syndrome, we examined the 2 types of IVD with respect to serologic associations. NIVD, unlike MIVD, was significantly associated with seroreactivity reflected by hyperglobulinemia (P = 0.01), rheumatoid factor (P = 0.002), antinuclear antibodies (P = 0.02), and antibodies to Ro (SS-A) (P = 0.00006), and with hypocomplementemia (P = 0.03). The differential association of the 2 types of IVD with serologic reactivity and hypocomplementemia suggests that there may be basic differences in the immunopathogenesis of these 2 forms of IVD in Sjögren's syndrome.