TY - JOUR T1 - Response to: ‘Is miR200b-5p a new predictor of lymphoma or associated with lymphocytes infiltrate within salivary glands?’ by Nocturne <em>et al</em> JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - e96 LP - e96 DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2018-214009 VL - 78 IS - 9 AU - Efstathia K Kapsogeorgou AU - Aristea Papageorgiou AU - Athanase D Protogerou AU - Michael Voulgarelis AU - Athanasios G Tzioufas Y1 - 2019/09/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/78/9/e96.abstract N2 - We would like to thank Nocturne et al 1 for their comments regarding our paper,2 giving us the opportunity to clarify possible obscurities and signify the predictive value of low miR200b-5p levels in minor salivary glands (MSGs) for the development of lymphoma in primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS).Our findings disclosed that low miR200b-5p levels in MSGs of patients with pSS (1) strongly discriminate patients with SS who will develop or have lymphoma from those who will not, (2) independently predict lymphoma development, (3) are reduced long before the clinical onset of lymphoma, enabling thus, the identification and efficient monitoring of high-risk patients and (4) may have an application in the monitoring of therapeutic response. These findings strongly support the predictive value of miR200b-5p for monitoring lymphoma development in pSS. Furthermore, the simplicity of the detection assay facilitates the easy and reproducible application worldwide.As addressed in the original manuscript, this new biomarker was found to correlate with several histological, clinical and laboratory parameters previously associated with lymphoma development, including biopsy focus score and infiltration by various types by infiltrating cells.2 Although the later associations … ER -