Salivary duct autoantibody in Sjøgren's syndrome: correlation with focal sialadenitis in the labial mucosa

No correlation between the occurrence of the salivary duct antibody and focal lymphocytic sialadenitis in the labial mucosa was found in ten patients with the sicca syndrome, twenty-seven patients with Sjogren's syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, and forty-seven patients with rheumatoid arthritis alone. No correlation between the variables was found in any of the groups examined. Post-mortem studies on the labial mucosal biopsy show that the results of biopsy are reproducible, and so the lack of correlation is not due to sampling error when the biopsy is taken. It is suggested that the salivary duct antibody is an epiphenomenon of rheumatoid arthritis rather than a manifestation of Sjogren's syndrome per se.