In vivo confocal microscopy findings of cornea and tongue mucosa in patients with Sjögren’s syndrome

Abstract

Introduction and objectivesWe aimed to investigate whether Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) had distinctive findings in tongue confocal microscopy in a non-invasive manner. Materials and methodsThis retrospective case-control study evaluated corneal and tongue confocal microscopy findings of the right eyes of 25 patients with aqueous deficient dry eye and 12 healthy volunteers without dry eye findings. There were a total of 14 patients diagnosed with SS-associated dry eye (SSDE), while 11 cases were evaluated as non-Sjögren dry eye (NSDE). ResultsA significant difference was observed in the dendritic cell count at the corneal subbasal nerve level between the SSDE and NSDE groups (P=.018). In SSDE group, the confocal microscopy images of dendritiform hyperreflective inflammatory cells in the tongue mucosa were in favor of inflammation. However, these findings were not found in patients with NSDE or in controls. ConclusionsThis study showed that confocal microscopy provided a non-invasive evaluation of the inflammatory cells in the tongue of SS patients.