25
May
2023
|
14:17 PM
America/New_York

First Prospective Study Finds Pregnancies With Sjögren's to Be Largely Safe

Medscape reports that pregnant women with sjögren's syndrome have pregnancy outcomes similar to those of the general population, according to the first study prospectively tracking pregnancy outcomes among people with the autoimmune condition.

"Most early studies of pregnancy in rheumatic disease patients were retrospective and included only small numbers, making it difficult to know how generalizable the reported results were," said Lisa R. Sammaritano, MD,  rheumatologist at HSS. She was not involved with the research.

Most of these previous studies suggested an increased risk of adverse outcomes, such as miscarriages, preterm deliveries, and small-for-gestational-age birthweight. But in addition to small patient numbers, retrospective studies "are subject to greater reporting bias, which may predispose patients with negative outcomes being more likely to be included because they were followed more closely," Dr. Sammaritano said.

"This prospective study has several advantages over the earlier retrospective reports: The same data were collected in the same way for all the patients, the patients were recruited at similar time points, and ― due to the multicenter nature of the cohort ― numbers are larger than in prior studies. All these factors make the results stronger and more generalizable to the sjögren's patients we see in our practices," she added.

Read the full article at medscape.com.