Concomitant extrahepatic autoimmune diseases do not compromise the long-term outcomes of primary biliary cholangitis

Background: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients often have concomitant extrahepatic autoimmune (EHA) diseases including Sjogren's syndrome (SS), systemic sclerosis (SSc), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and autoimmune thyroid disease. The present study aimed to describe the prevalence of EHA diseases in PBC and explore the impact of EHA diseases on the long-term outcomes of PBC in Chinese patients. Methods: Medical records of PBC patients diagnosed in our institute were retrospectively reviewed. Pa-tients were followed up by a standardized telephone interview. The endpoints were defined as liver -related death and/or liver transplantation. Results: Totally 247 of the 985 (25.1%) PBC patients enrolled in the study had at least one concomi-tant EHA disease. Sjogren's syndrome ( n = 140, 14.2%) was the most frequent one, followed by rheuma-toid arthritis (RA) ( n = 56, 5.7%) and Hashimoto's thyroiditis ( n = 45, 4.6%). Patients with EHA dis-eases were more common in females ( P < 0.001) and in those with a family history of autoimmune disease ( P = 0.017). Overall, no differences were found between PBC patients with and without EHA dis-eases in terms of biochemical response rates to ursodeoxycholic acid, the incidence of hepatic events, or transplant-free survival. RA and EHA >= 2 were protective factors for hepatic events in univariate Cox analysis, but the results became insignificant in multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Concomitant EHA diseases were common in PBC patients but did not compromise the long-term outcomes of PBC.(c) 2022 First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.