| [ Summary ] |
Sjogren's syndrome (SS) consists of the combination of keratoconjunctivitis sicca and xerostomia, because of the destruction of salivary glands and/or lacrimal glands. The exocrine glands are also systematically disordered. Therefore, the digestive system, which has a great deal of exocrine glands, is vulnerable to disturbance due to SS. Many SS related diseases have been reported, such as atrophic gastritis, autoimmune pancreatitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, primary biliary cirrhosis, autoimmune hepatitis, etc. Recently, cevimeline hydrochloride, which is an M3 muscarinic receptor agonist, has been used for treatment of xerostomia in patients with SS, but the difficulty is that it occasionally produces some digestive tract side effects. |