Objective. Different sets of diagnostic criteria have been proposed for Sjogren's syndrome (SS), but none have been validated with a large series of patients or in a multicenter study. We conducted the present study involving 26 centers from 12 countries (11 in Europe, plus Israel), with the goals of reaching a consensus on the diagnostic procedures for SS and defining classification criteria to be used in epidemiologic surveys and adopted by the scientific community.Methods. The study protocol was subdivided into two parts. For part I, questionnaires regarding both ocular and oral involvement were developed; they in-

Rituximab did not alleviate symptoms or disease activity in patients with pSS at week 24, although it alleviated some symptoms at earlier time points.

Objective-To assess the recently proposed preliminary criteria for the classification of Sjogren's syndrome (SS) in a multicentre European study of a new series of clinically defined cases. Methods-The criteria included six items: I = ocular symptoms; II = oral symptoms; II = evidence of keratoconjunctivitis sicca; IV = focal sialoadenitis by minor salivary gland biopsy; V = instrumental evidence of salivary gland involvement; VI = presence of autoantibodies.

clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00632866.

No abstract