To address the clinical features of malignant lymphoma (ML) occurring in primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS), understand their similarities and differences and explore their risk factors.
Medical records of 17 cases of pSS/ML inpatients admitted to our hospital from January 1980 to August 2010 were systemically reviewed. And 163 cases were randomly selected as controls from 4485 pSS/nML inpatients at our hospital during the same period.
There were 14 females and 3 m ales with the diagnostic age of pSS at (53 ± 13) years old. And the disease duration was (8 ± 9) years. There was no significant difference between two groups in three general aspects (P > 0.05). The gap between pSS and ML was (4 ± 4) years. Several significant differences existed between two groups (P < 0.05) in clinical features and laboratory findings: lymphadenopathy, parothydomegalia and leucopenia. The pathologic categories of ML in pSS/ML included NHL (n = 15) (14 cases of B-cell origin), HL (n = 1) and lymphosarcoma (n = 1).
During the course of pSS, the occurrence of such manifestations as lymphadenopathy, parothydomegalia and leucopenia, etc.tends to have a complication of ML with a dominance of NHL. And a worse prognosis is expected.