To investigate the plasma midkine and pleiotrophin levels in SLE patients, as well as their correlation with major clinical parameters and interleukin-17 (IL-17) level in SLE, 83 SLE patients and 123 controls including 20 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, 21 Sjögren's syndrome (SS) patients and 82 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited.
The average optical density of IL-17 correlated with the severity of lymphocytic infiltration in the labial glands, while the proportion of Th17 cells in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells showed no significant relationship to the degree of lymphocytic infiltration in the labial glands from the SS patients.