The role of HTLV-I infection in Sjögren's syndrome (SS) remains unclear. In this study, we clinically compared radiographic imaging with histological cellular infiltration between HTLV-I-seropositive and HTLV-I-sero-negative SS.
Sixty primary SS patients were divided into two age-matched groups based on the seropositivity of the anti-HTLV-I antibody. We evaluated the two groups through labial salivary gland biopsy-proven cellular infiltration and sialography-proven radiographic gland destruction.
In these 60 pSS patients, the incidence of abnormalities as determined by salivary gland biopsy and sialography was 51.7% (31/60) and 76.7% (46/60), respectively. Although there was no difference in the prevalence of abnormal findings between salivary gland biopsy and sialography in the whole 60 patients, there were significantly fewer abnormalities determined by sialography in HTLV-I-seropositive SS patients in comparison with HTLV-I-seronegative SS patients. Also, these findings were strengthened by the results that none of HTLV-I-seropositive SS patients with focus score 0 had abnormal sialography findings.
Our results suggest that HTLV-I infection results in resistance toward salivary gland destruction of Sjögren's syndrome.