1. Francesca Barone on behalf of Essential study group.
Sjogren’s syndrome Study Group EULAR Sjogren’s Syndrome Experimental and Translational investigative Alliance
Francesca Barone on behalf of Essential study group.
ESSential is a platform aimed at creating a network of basic researchers and clinicians interested in Sjögren’s Syndrome and promote research initiatives, facilitating international collaboration and interaction.
Essential members have met annually with a good attendance by the Sjogren’s community. These meetings have been successful in integrating and facilitating interaction between the different groups. This platform has facilitate the communication and integration of international projects.
Translational :
IMI Necessity : Members of eSSential community, under the leadership of Prof. Xavier Mariette have successfully applied for an Industry Academia collaboration grant to the IMI funding stream (H2020). This project is aimed at developing new sensitive and validated clinical endpoints in primary Sjögren’s Syndrome (pSS). This platform will also provide samples and resources to perform analysis and validation of histological endpoints.
Several members of Essential are involved in Harmonics, a large European grant awarded to Salvatore De Vita and Athanasios Tzioufas to harmonize the European cohorts and standardize data and sample collection in Europe.
Essential has provided a discussion platform to initiate 2 collaborative initiatives:
- A FOREUM grant awarded to Prof. Fai Ng to validate a new platform for stratification for patients with Sjogren's Syndrome
- A new TASK FORCE to validate and integrate platforms for the INTERFERON signature. This latter initiative will see an integrated collaboration with other study groups and externalmembers.
Ultrasound sub study group
Lead by Valerie Devauchelle Pensec:
This subgroup, already recognised as Ultrasound study group ( established in 2012), is driving the initiative to integrate the use of ultrasography in the diagnostic criteria for Sjogren’s syndrome. This group has been associated to Essential in In order to establish the use of US as diagnostic tool, the group is undergoing a large multi-centric consensus study , following OMERACT guidelines. Several abstracts on this work have been submitted to EULAR 2017.
UTOPIA PROJECT: Integration of Salivary-Gland Ultrasonography in Classification Criteria for Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome:
an International Vignette-Based Study.
24 international experts in pSS .
Internet-secure relational database, 512 realistic vignettes, abstracted from 150 patients with suspected pSS included the DiapSS cohort and the
Italian cohort.
Each vignette contained sections on ‘history’, clinical symptoms, results of the SGUS evaluation, results of the major tests to diagnose pSS
Each expert scored the diagnosis of pSS as absent, unlikely, likely or present for 64 vignettes. Each vignette was evaluated by 3 experts, and diagnosis of pSS was obtained when at least 2 of 3 considered it.