• Shino Fujimoto, Hiroshi Kawabata, Nozomu Kurose, Haruka Kawanami-Iwao, Tomoyuki Sakai, Takafumi Kawanami, Yoshimasa Fujita, Toshihiro Fukushima, and Yasufumi Masaki.
• Department of Hematology and Immunology, Kanazawa Medical University.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2017 Dec 1; 96 (50): e9220.

RationaleTAFRO syndrome is a newly proposed disorder that manifests as thrombocytopenia, anasarca, fever, reticulin myelofibrosis, renal dysfunction, and organomegaly. In this report, we describe the development of severe TAFRO syndrome-like systemic symptoms during the clinical course of juvenile-onset Sjögren's syndrome in a 32-year-old woman.Patient ConcernsThe patient was admitted due to dyspnea, fever, polyarthralgia, and generalized edema. She had been diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome at the age of 14 years, based on histopathological examination of a biopsy of the minor salivary glands and the development of Raynaud's phenomenon, with no follow-up treatment required. On admission, she presented with anemia, elevated C-reactive protein levels, anasarca, and hepato-splenomegaly. A bone marrow examination revealed increased megakaryocytes with reticulin fibrosis, and the histopathology of an axillary lymph node was consistent with mixed-type Castleman disease. Eventually, she developed thrombocytopenia.InterventionsHer symptoms fulfilled all of the major and minor categories of the diagnostic criteria for TAFRO syndrome. However, considering her prior diagnosis, we assumed that the clinical presentation was consistent with an acute exacerbation of Sjögren's syndrome. Unlike typical cases of TAFRO syndrome, the administration of relatively low-dose prednisolone relieved her symptoms.LessonsDifferentiation between TAFRO syndrome and exacerbation of an autoimmune disease is clinically important, although this can be challenging. Identification of specific biomarkers for TAFRO syndrome would be clinically beneficial.Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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