Bronchial hyperresponsiveness in Sjögren’s syndrome — relationship between extraglandular manifestation

Our objective was to appraise bronchial hyperresponsiveness in Sjogren’s syndrome (SS) and to analyze the clinical aspects of those patients. Forty-five patients with primary and secondary SS underwent examination with chest X-ray, spirometry and directly writing of the dose-response curve of respiratory resistance (Rrs) during the continuous inhalation of methacholine in stepwise incremental concentrations (astograph). Thirty-one patients (68.9%) had bronchial hyperresponsiveness. Ten out of 12 (83.3%) patients with extraglandular involvement had bronchial hyperresponsiveness. The threshold of the increase of Rrs in SS patients was significantly higher than bronchial asthma. This paper shows that some patients with SS have bronchial hyperresponsiveness; especially in patients with extraglandular involvement, it occurs at a high incidence. In addition, the pattern of the dose-response curve with bronchial hyperresponsiveness in SS was similar to that of chronic bronchitis rather than bronchial asthma in the methacholine inhalation test.