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Clinical Article
Preliminary study on MRI features of the lower lip salivary glands in Sjögren's syndrome
LIANG Yunping  WANG Wei  QU Hang  GU Yue  REN Haolin  ZHAO Yi 

Cite this article as LIANG Y P, WANG W, QU H, et al. Preliminary study on MRI features of the lower lip salivary glands in Sjögren's syndrome[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(5): 75-79. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.013.


[Abstract] Objective To investigate MRI features and diagnostic efficacy of the lower lip salivary glands in Sjogren's syndrome (SS).Materials and Methods The clinical and lower lip salivary glands MRI data of 232 patients with clinically suspected SS were retrospectively analyzed and divided into the SS group (155 patients) and the non-Sjögren's syndrome (NS) group (77 patients) according to the classification criteria for SS jointly developed by the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism in 2016. The lower lip salivary glands' T1WI and T2WI-iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetric and least-squares estimation (IDEAL) water-phase imaging features (glands volume, fat content, signal characteristics) were observed. Based on the T2WI-IDEAL water-phase sequence, ITK-SNAP software was used to measure and calculate the volume of the lower lip salivary glands, the mean and standard deviation of signal intensity, and univariate and multivariate analyses were performed, and the multi-factor joint prediction model was established by binary logistic regression. The diagnostic efficacy of independent influencing factors and combined prediction model on SS was evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.Results MRI of the lower lip salivary glands in 48 and 12 patients in the SS and NS groups, respectively, showed glandular atrophy with increased inter-glandular fatty tissue, and the T2WI-IDEAL water-phase signal was unevenly reduced, with a statistically significant difference between the groups (χ2=5.316, P=0.023). The lower lip salivary glands volume and signal intensity standard deviation had statistically significant intergroup differences (Z=-3.260, -2.803; P=0.001, 0.005), were independent influences on SS (OR=0.999, 1.014; P=0.001, 0.003), and the areas under the curve (AUCs) of predicted SS were 0.629 [95% confidence internal (CI): 0.553-0.704] and 0.613 (95% CI: 0.534-0.692), respectively, the AUC value of the combined prediction model of the two features was 0.682 (95% CI: 0.608-0.756).Conclusions The MRI features of the lower lip salivary glands in SS are glandular atrophy and signal inhomogeneity, and the prediction of SS based on the volume of the labial glands and the standard deviation of signal intensity has a certain diagnostic value.
[Keywords] labial gland;salivary gland;atrophy;Sjögren's syndrome;magnetic resonance imaging

LIANG Yunping   WANG Wei   QU Hang   GU Yue   REN Haolin   ZHAO Yi*  

Department of Medical Imaging, Affiliated Hospital of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225000, China

Corresponding author: ZHAO Y, E-mail: zhaoyi8706@163.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2024-01-23
Accepted  2024-04-17
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.013
Cite this article as LIANG Y P, WANG W, QU H, et al. Preliminary study on MRI features of the lower lip salivary glands in Sjögren's syndrome[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(5): 75-79. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.013.

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