title: Incidence of primary Sjogren's syndrome in Slovenia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the annual incidence of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) in Slovenia.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients admitted to our department of rheumatology or referred to our outpatient clinic between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2002 owing to sicca symptoms or because of a suspicion of SS were examined. Our rheumatological department is the only tertiary referral centre for the Ljubljana region, which has a population of 599 895 Caucasian people. All patients were evaluated by the validated European criteria for SS. The exact 95% confidence interval (CI) based on binomial distribution was created for the incidence estimate.
  
  
  RESULTS
  248 patients were examined; 71 of them (28.6%; 65 women, 6 men) were diagnosed as having pSS. Their mean (SD) age was 51.3 (14.5) years (range 19-78). The average annual incidence for pSS in our study population was calculated as 3.9 cases per 100 000 inhabitants (95% CI 1.1 to 10.2).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The estimated annual incidence of pSS in Slovenia is 3.9/100 000.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Plesivcnik Novljan
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rozman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hocevar
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grmek
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kveder
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomsic
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012859:Sjogren's Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017524:Slovenia / Q000453:epidemiology