The clinical characteristics of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders with other autoimmune diseases

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSDs) with other autoimmune diseases. Methods and Results Retrospective analysis was performed on 55 NMOSDs patients admitted to Peking University Third Hospital from June 2014 to January 2019. There were 10 NMOSDs patients with autoimmune diseases, including 5 patients with Sjögren's syndrome (SS), 2 patients with Hashimone's thyroiditis (HT), one patient with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), one patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and one patient with undifferentiated connective tissue disease. The proportion of females with autoimmune disease (adjusted χ2=3.842, P=0.050) and positive of anti⁃AQP4 antibody (adjusted χ2=4.303, P=0.038) was higher than that of females without autoimmune diseases. Among 10 patients of NMOSDs with other autoimmune diseases, 9 patients involved spinal cord, 3 cases only involved cervical spinal, 2 cases only involved thoracic spinal, 4 cases involved both cervical and thoracic spinal at the same time, 4 cases involved optic nerve, one case involved only optic nerve. There was brain lesions in 2 cases, one case involved medulla oblongata. The imaging characteristics of spinal cord lesions were consistent with those of patients with NMOSDs. The length of the lesions were all longer than 3 vertebral bodies, and the longest lesions involved 10 segments. Conclusions NMOSDs is easy to be combined with other autoimmune diseases, which are more common in women, and the rate of positive of anti⁃AQP4 antibody is higher, which should be paid attention to.

Keywords

• neuromyelitis optica
• immune system diseases
• aquaporin 4