Risk of cardiovascular involvement in patients with primary Sjogren's Syndrome: a large-scale cross-sectional cohort study

Objective: To evaluate the presence of cardiovascular involvement and analyze potential risk factors independently associated with cardiovascular disease in primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS) patients. Methods: We recruited a cohort of 367 pSS patients and 367 age- and gender-matched controls from the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. Demographic, clinical and laboratory data, and overt cardiovascular involvement events were recorded. Potential risk factors associated with cardiovascular involvement were determined by multivariate analyses. Results: pSS patients had a significantly higher cardiovascular events rate than that of the controls (61.6% versus 29.7%; p<0.01). Compared with pSS patients without cardiovascular involvement, those with cardiovascular events were significantly older; had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, hypoalbuminemia, and hyperlipemia; were more likely to have extraglandular organ involvement; and had a higher level of C-reactive protein (CRP) (all p<0.05). In the multivariate analysis, age, hypertension, and extraglandular organ involvement were found to be risk factors independently correlated with cardiovascular events in pSS patients. Conclusions: pSS patients are more vulnerable to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). In addition to traditional CVD risk factors such as age and hypertension, extraglandular organ involvement was found to be independently associated with cardiovascular involvement in pSS patients, which suggests the need for early detection and prevention measures to improve the prognosis in those patients.