Current Rheumatology Reviews - Volume 9, Issue 4, 2013

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a multisystem connective tissue disease characterized by fibrosis, autoimmunity and vascular damage. Although fibrosis is often considered the main feature of the disease, there is evidence that the underlying vasculopathy plays an important role in the initiation and perpetuation of SSc. Vascular manifestations such as Raynaud’s phenomenon and digital ulcers are prominent in early disease stages a Read More

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a heterogeneous chronic autoimmune disease that is very difficult to diagnose in the early phase, because of the low sensitivity of the classification criteria currently used to identify patients without skin involvement, with an important delay on the therapy that is often started when internal organ involvement has already irreversible. The biggest challenge in the fight against SSc is to detect valid p Read More

Nailfold microvascular impairment represents an early feature of systemic sclerosis (SSc) and its progression through different patterns of capillary damage and their validated scoring, is evaluable by nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC) in a safe and reliable manner. The presence of specific morphological microvascular alterations at the NVC (i.e., presence of giant capillaries) is fundamental and mandatory for the early diag Read More

In the nailfold area, specific diagnostic microvascular abnormalities are easily recognized via capillaroscopic examination in systemic sclerosis (SSc). They are termed “scleroderma” type capillaroscopic pattern, which includes presence of dilated, giant capillaries, haemorrhages, avascular areas, and neoangiogenic capillaries and are observed in the majority of SSc patients (in more than 90%). LeRoy and Medsger (2001) pr Read More

Introduction: Diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (SSc) at very early stage could allow starting an appropriate therapy and improving the patient outcome. Skin involvement is often the first non-Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) symptom. Its uncovering may play an important role for the initial diagnosis. Objective: To introduce a simplified method for non-invasive evaluation of skin mechanical properties in patients with clinically Read More

Digital ulcers (DUs) are frequent and recurrent complication in systemic sclerosis (SSc) and are the main cause of pain, impaired function of the hand and disability in SSc. The current study is a retrospective analysis of 60 SSc patients (47 patients with limited cutaneous SSc, 8 patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc and 5 patients with overlap syndrome, mean age 54.5±14.2 years, 52 women and 8 men). The frequency and ev Read More

Digital ulcers (DUs) are among the most frequent and disabling vascular complications in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). The etiology and pathogenesis of DUs differs depending on the lesion localization. For this reason the underlying etiologic and pathogenetic factors will guide the therapeutic decision. The main pathogenic mechanism that contributes to the development of fingertip DUs is ischemia owing to SSc-rel Read More

Microparticles (MPs) are small, membrane-coated vesicles released in response to injury, cell activation or apoptosis. Growing evidence suggests associations between MPs and disease manifestations in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study is to systematically review published articles and abstracts that discuss the role of MPs in SSc. The Web of Science®, PubMed® and Google Scholar databases were searched for all Read More

Introduction: Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) is increased in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Cervical neoplasia is caused by human papilloma virus (HPV) infection which persists and causes malignant transformation of infected cervical cells. Women with lupus have impaired immune systems which can facilitate HPV persistence. We hypothesized that women with SLE who developed CIN would be yo Read More