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Objective Patients with autoimmune diseases often present with olfactory impairment. The aim of the study was to assess the olfactory functions of patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome and to correlate these findings with their disease activity. Methods Fifty-two patients with primary SS and 52 sex- and age-matched healthy control subjects were included. All of them underwent clinical and laboratory examination. Olfactory functions were evaluated using olfactory function assessment by computerized testing including the three stages of smell: threshold, identification, and memory of the different odors. Results All the olfactory scores (olfactory threshold, identification, and memory) in patients with pSS were significantly decreased than the control group (all P < 0.01). Patients had higher proportion of anosmia (13.5% vs 0%) and hyposmia (19.2% vs 11.5%) than controls (χ2 = 10.526, P < 0.01). Multivariable regression analysis revealed that ESSDAI and the symptoms of dryness, fatigue, and limb pain had negative influence on olfactory function (adjusted R2 = 0.381, 0.387, 0.513, and 0.614, respectively). ESSPRI showed significantly negative association with olfactory threshold, identification, memory, and total scores. Olfactory identification and memory scores were decreased in pSS patients with thyroid dysfunction or hypocomplementemia (P < 0.05). Smell threshold scores were decreased in pSS patients with anti-SSA antibody or anti-nuclear antibody compared with those without those autoantibodies (P < 0.01). Conclusion Our findings indicate that olfactory functions are impaired in pSS patients. There was a close correlation between olfactory dysfunction and disease severity and immunological abnormalities. Immune and systemic inflammation dysregulation might play a role in the mechanism of this defect.

Objective This study aimed to investigate the correlation between contrast‐enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) features and molecular subtypes of breast cancer (BC). Methods A total of 116 patients (116 lesions) with pathologically diagnosed BC who received conventional ultrasound and CEUS before surgery were enrolled in this study. BC molecular subtypes were identified by postoperative pathological and immunohistochemical analysis as Luminal A (LA), Luminal B (LB), HER2 (H2) over‐expression, and triple‐negative (TN). Qualitative and quantitative CEUS characteristics were analyzed by one‐way analysis of variance (continuous variables) or Pearson's χ2 test or Fisher's exact probability method (categorical variables). Results There were significant differences in enhancement speed and enhancement degree among the four subtypes (P < .05). The area under the curve (AUC), time to peak (TTP), and peak intensity (PI) differed among the four subtypes (P < .05). The AUC of the LA subtype (305.1 ± 188.4) was significantly smaller compared with the H2 (535.7 ± 222.0, P = .007) and TN subtypes (496.6 ± 254.7, P = .019). In addition, TTP was shorter in the H2 subtype (19.8 ± 4.9) compared with the other subtypes, and was significantly shorter than in the LA subtype (26.3 ± 7.2, P = .008) and LB subtype (23.1 ± 6.7, P = .036). The PI of the LA subtype (4.7 ± 2.3) was significantly lower than that of the LB (6.6 ± 2.3, P = .027), H2 (7.4 ± 2.2, P = .005), and TN subtypes (6.9 ± 2.6, P = .014). Conclusions CEUS features differed significantly among different molecular subtypes of BC. The enhancement patterns and parameters may be important predictive features of different subtypes of BC.