Patients With Sjogren Syndrome Have an Increased Risk of Heart Attack

A new research found that patients with Sjogren's syndrome suffer an increased risk of heart attack, especially in the initial year after diagnosis.

Sjogren Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, has a significant risk of heart attack in the first year following diagnosis, according to the study researchers and hence, it is suggested that these patients should be closely monitored for signs of coronary artery disease and also need active management of their cardiovascular risk for stroke.

The autoimmune inflammatory Sjogren's syndrome (SjS) is a disorder where the body's immune system attacks glands that secrete fluids like the tear and saliva glands.  Due to inflammation within the gland, the production of the fluid drops causing painful and burning sensation in the eyes, dry mouth and at times even dryness in the nasal passage, throat, vagina and skin. 

Basically, the primary SjS occurs in those with no other rheumatological disease and the secondary SjS occurs in those who have another rheumatological disease, most often systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Nearly 0.2 percent of the adult population suffers from SjS and it affects nine times as many women as men. 

"It is the acute inflammatory state in Sjogren's syndrome, particularly at the onset of the disease, which is likely to be the main driver for the increased risk of heart attacks and stroke. Our results support the role of inflammation in cardiovascular disease and the need for increased monitoring for coronary artery disease in all patients with this condition, in addition to proper management and modification of their cardiovascular risk factors to reduce the risk of a future heart attack," says principal investigator of the study, Dr. Antonio Avina-Zubieta, a research scientist at the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada.

This is the first general population based cohort study that compared the risk of heart attacks and stroke in those with new SjS with  age, sex controls. 

In case of heart attacks, out of 1,176 new cases with SjS nearly 28 of them developed first time heart attack with the incident rate of 7.7 per 1000 person.  In the control group that included 11,879 people 138 of them had heart attack with incident rate of 3.5 per 1000 person.

Among 1,195 new cases of SjS 19 of them had developed first time stroke with the incident rate of 5.1 per 1000 persons. Among the controls that included 11,983, the CVA event occurred in 137 with incident rate of 3.4 per 1000 persons.

The risk of developing strokes in the first year was 3.6 times higher .

The study was presented at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014).