Autoimmune diseases (AIDs) are characterized by a multifactorial aetiology and a complex genetic background, with the MHC region playing a major role. We genotyped for HLA-DRB1 locus 1228 patients with AIDs-213 with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), 166 with Psoriasis or Psoriatic Arthritis (Ps + PsA), 153 with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), 67 with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc), 536 with Multiple Scl...

S ystemic sclerosis (SSc) is a slowly progressing chronic inflammatory disease that leads to inflammation and fibrosis of the skin and internal organs [1]. Clinically, systemic sclerosis is a heterogeneous disease of different subsets characterized by the extent of skin fibrosis, presence of distinct circulating autoantibodies, and the involvement of internal organs. It is a rare disease with a...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterized by vascular injury, immunological abnormalities, and fibrosis of the skin as well as various internal organs. Vascular impairment is the early manifestation and plays a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of SSc. Recent studies suggest that complex interactions among the endothelial cells, pericytes, smooth muscle cells, and fibroblasts are involved in...

The mechanism that may cause degenerative fibrotic skin lesions was studied in situ using skin biopsies from patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), localized scleroderma, or keloids, and at the initial disease stage in the University of California at Davis (UCD) lines 200/206 chickens, which develop a hereditary systemic connective tissue disease resembling human SSc and permit study of diseas...

Both systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) diseases are related to the genetic and environmental factors, causing damage to the skin. The mutations of keratin 1 gene (KRT1) were reported to associate with skin diseases. The single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, rs14024) and the indel polymorphism (cds-indel, rs267607656), consisting mostly of the common haplotypes and c...

Auto-antibodies against topoisomerase I (topo I) are frequently detected in sera of systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients. Anti-topo I auto-antibodies are considered to be associated with the diffuse cutaneous form of systemic sclerosis (dcSSc). However, anti-topo I auto-antibodies are also detected in limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis (lcSSc) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In this stud...

OBJECTIVES Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is considered as a systemic disease which mainly affects small vessels. However, macrovascular involvement in SSc is still elusive in literature. Our study is to evaluate the macrovascular involvement in SSc patient and its association with atherosclerosis, disease activity and other factors. METHODS Forty-eight SSc patients were studied; 46 healthy people ...

OBJECTIVE The ankle and toe brachial indices (ABI and TBI) are calculated as the ankle and toe systolic blood pressures divided by the highest brachial systolic pressure, respectively. We sought to evaluate the efficacy of ABI and TBI as an objective, non-invasive assessment of vascular involvement in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and to investigate the clinical significance of TBI in ...

IL-4: Interleukin 4 IFN-b: Interferon beta IFN-b1a: Interferon beta-1a MS: Multiple sclerosis SSc: Systemic sclerosis Th2: T helper 2 INTRODUCTION Interferon beta-1a (IFN-b1a) is a cytokine therapy used in the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. The most common adverse injection site reactions include local erythema, pain, and induration. Other less frequently encountered react...

introduction: pulmonary involvement secondary to systemic sclerosis (ssc) is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in ssc patients. we designed this study to determine the correlation of important lung function parameters with lung high resolution ct (hrct) scan findings.materials and methods: thirty–two consecutive diffuse ssc patients with pulmonary fibrosis were enrolled in this cross-s...