title: Subclinical multisystemic autoimmunity presenting as a progressive myelopathy.
abstract: Autoimmunity can manifest clinically in many ways; however, despite the various efforts to classify autoimmune disorders into specific disease entities, the borders between these disorders remain, in many cases, unclear. In this report we describe a young woman with subclinical Sjögren's syndrome and biliary cirrhosis, who presents clinically with symptoms exclusively from the central nervous system. This neurological syndrome is consistent with a progressive myelopathy. Although the patient has a serologically and histologically confirmed multisystemic autoimmune disorder, she fulfills none of the classification criteria for the diagnosis of a specific connective tissue disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathophysiology, Laiko General Hospital, School of Medicine, National University of Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Linardaki
authors.forename: F N
authors.initials: FN
authors.lastname: Skopouli
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koufos
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Moutsopoulos
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015551:Autoimmunity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008105:Liver Cirrhosis, Biliary / Q000150:complications*; D012859:Sjogren's Syndrome / Q000150:complications*; D013118:Spinal Cord Diseases / Q000209:etiology*