Sjögren’s-Linked Bronchiectasis Findings from National Registry Headed to CHEST 2026

When a rare lung disease meets a rare autoimmune condition, the clinical picture becomes exponentially more complicated, and the research needed to untangle it becomes correspondingly scarce. That gap is precisely what a new analysis drawn from the U.S. Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry sets out to address. The Bronchiectasis and NTM Association has announced that an abstract based on Registry data will be presented as a rapid-fire presentation at CHEST 2026, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, taking place October 18 through 21, 2026, in Phoenix, Arizona. The conference is a flagship venue for advances in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, and its rapid-fire format is designed to surface concise, high-impact findings to an audience of clinicians and investigators from around the world.

The abstract, titled “Bronchiectasis in Sjögren’s Syndrome: Data from the U.S. Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry,” compares the demographic, clinical, and microbiologic characteristics of people who have bronchiectasis associated with Sjögren’s syndrome against those who have bronchiectasis without Sjögren’s syndrome. This kind of head-to-head characterization matters because Sjögren’s syndrome, a systemic autoimmune disease best known for its hallmark dryness of the eyes and mouth, is one of the recognized conditions that predispose patients to bronchiectasis. Understanding whether bronchiectasis that develops in the setting of Sjögren’s behaves differently from other forms of the disease could reshape how physicians monitor, treat, and counsel this subgroup of patients.

Bronchiectasis itself is a chronic lung disease defined by airways that have become permanently enlarged, thickened, or scarred. In a healthy respiratory tract, the airways are lined with a mucociliary escalator, a coordinated system of ciliated cells and mucus that traps inhaled microbes and debris and sweeps them upward to be cleared. In bronchiectasis, this architecture is damaged. The permanently widened airways accumulate mucus, and bacteria that would ordinarily be expelled instead linger, multiply, and provoke cycles of inflammation and infection. Each infection cycle can cause further structural damage to the airway walls, creating a self-perpetuating spiral of declining lung function that clinicians describe as a vicious cycle. Between 340,000 and 522,000 adults in the United States are currently receiving treatment for the disease, a figure that many researchers believe underestimates the true burden because bronchiectasis remains underdiagnosed.

Compounding the burden of bronchiectasis is its intimate relationship with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease, or NTM lung disease. NTM are a family of mycobacteria commonly found in the environment, in soil and water, that are distinct from the organisms that cause tuberculosis and leprosy. For most people, exposure to these organisms is harmless, but for individuals with compromised immune systems or pre-existing lung conditions such as bronchiectasis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, NTM can establish a chronic, difficult-to-treat infection of the lung tissue. NTM lung disease affects tens of thousands of individuals in the United States, and rates of infection are rising. The damaged, mucus-laden airways of bronchiectasis provide an ideal ecological niche for these environmental organisms, which is why the two diseases so frequently appear together and why registries that track both conditions are scientifically valuable.

The data underpinning the CHEST 2026 abstract come from the U.S. Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry, an initiative of the Bronchiectasis and NTM Association. The Registry is a national database that collects clinical data from individuals diagnosed with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis and NTM pulmonary disease, the two related conditions that fall outside the well-established cystic fibrosis care infrastructure. Unlike single-center studies, which can reflect the idiosyncrasies of one clinic’s referral patterns and population, the Registry draws participants from multiple clinical institutions across the United States. That multi-center design serves two purposes that researchers in rare-disease fields consistently identify as critical: it supports collaborative research across institutions, and it enables the planning of multi-center clinical trials, which are essential for testing therapies in conditions whose patient populations are dispersed and comparatively small.

The decision to compare Sjögren’s-associated bronchiectasis with non-Sjögren’s bronchiectasis reflects a broader shift in how the field is approaching the disease. Bronchiectasis is not a single entity but an endpoint shared by many different pathways of lung injury: prior severe infections, immune deficiencies, genetic conditions, obstruction of the airways, and autoimmune diseases all can set the vicious cycle in motion. Sjögren’s syndrome stands out among these causes because it combines two mechanisms at once. The autoimmune attack on exocrine glands reduces airway surface moisture and mucus clearance, while the systemic inflammatory environment can directly injure lung tissue. Lymphocytic infiltration of the airways, a well-recognized feature of Sjögren’s, may further alter the inflammatory milieu within the bronchial tree. Whether these mechanisms translate into measurable differences in demographics, clinical course, or the microbiology of the airways is exactly the kind of question the Registry was built to answer.

Demographic, clinical, and microbiologic comparisons are the standard analytical triad in bronchiectasis research, and each axis carries clinical weight. Demographic characteristics, such as age and sex distribution, can reveal whether Sjögren’s-associated bronchiectasis preferentially affects particular populations, which in turn informs screening strategies. Clinical characteristics encompass measures such as lung function, symptom burden, frequency of exacerbations, and the severity of structural damage seen on computed tomography, the imaging modality that serves as the diagnostic cornerstone for bronchiectasis. Microbiologic characteristics describe which organisms colonize or infect the airways, ranging from common bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, whose presence is associated with worse outcomes, to the nontuberculous mycobacteria that thrive in damaged airways. A systematic comparison across all three axes can identify whether Sjögren’s-associated disease represents a clinically distinct phenotype, a question with direct implications for how aggressively these patients should be monitored and treated.

The rapid-fire presentation format at CHEST 2026 underscores the pace at which bronchiectasis and NTM research is now moving. For decades, these conditions received limited attention from the pharmaceutical industry and the clinical research establishment, leaving patients with few approved therapies and clinicians with limited evidence to guide care. The maturation of patient registries has been one of the key inflection points in changing that landscape. By systematically collecting longitudinal clinical data from patients across the country, registries convert a scattered population into a research-ready cohort, allowing investigators to characterize disease subgroups, identify unmet needs, and design trials with realistic enrollment targets. Findings presented at major meetings then feed back into clinical practice, shaping which patients physicians think to test for bronchiectasis and which comorbidities they consider when evaluating a chronic cough or recurrent chest infections.

The Bronchiectasis and NTM Association, the nonprofit organization behind the Registry, describes its mission as improving the lives of people with bronchiectasis, NTM lung disease, or both conditions, through education, advocacy, research support, and the advancement of high-quality specialized care. The Association has acknowledged that the Registry is supported in part by corporate donors, a list of which is published on the Supporters page of its website, a transparency practice that is increasingly standard for patient-organization-led research initiatives. For patients living with these chronic conditions, the significance of the CHEST 2026 presentation extends beyond the specific findings about Sjögren’s syndrome. It signals that the experiences captured in the Registry, from hundreds of individuals across multiple institutions, are being translated into knowledge that the pulmonary medicine community is hearing at one of its largest annual gatherings, a step that ultimately moves the field toward better recognition, better trials, and better care.

Subject of Research: Bronchiectasis associated with Sjögren's syndrome compared using the U.S. Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry

Article Title: Abstract featuring Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry data to be presented at CHEST 2026

Article References: Abstract featuring Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry data to be presented at CHEST 2026. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: bronchiectasis, NTM lung disease, Sjögren's syndrome, CHEST 2026, patient registry, non-CF bronchiectasis, pulmonary medicine, chronic lung disease, nontuberculous mycobacteria, autoimmune disease, Bronchiectasis and NTM Association, clinical research