Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune fibrotic disease which only rarely affects peripheral nerves. When it occurs, nerve damage is usually mediated by entrapment or small vessel vasculitis. Here we report the first case of bilateral lumbar fibrosing plexopathy in a patient with SSc sine scleroderma, an unusual form of SSc. Neurological symptoms were controlled with high dose prednisone and cyclo...

INTRODUCTION The objective was to characterize the clinical and myopathologic features of patients with scleroderma-polymyositis (SSc-PM) overlap compared with a population of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and polymyositis (PM). METHODS A three-way comparison of patients with SSc-PM overlap (n = 25) with patients with SSc (n = 397) and PM (n = 40) on clinical and myopathologic featur...

Diffuse systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic disease of unknown cause characterized by diffuse fibrosis and vascular abnormalities in the skin and internal organs. Pathogenesis of SSc involves immunologic mechanisms, vascular damage and activation of fibroblasts. SSc varies in severity and progression; most patients eventually develop visceral complications, which are the usual causes of death...

We measured extracellular volume fraction (Ve) from preand post-contrast T1 maps of the left ventricle in 13 patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and 13 agematched controls. SSc patients and controls were similar with regard to LV and RV mass, volumes, and function. However, Ve was significantly higher in SSc patients than in controls, even when patients with visible late gadolinium enhanceme...

INTRODUCTION Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disorder characterized by tissue hypoxia due to vascular changes and excessive fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. Damage to blood vessels and endothelium, as well as imbalance of vascular homeostasis, impairment of angiogenesis and vasculogenesis are observed in the course of the disease. The aim of the study was to investigate...

Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by progressive fibrosis of skin and multiple internal organs and severe functional and structural microvascular alterations. SSc is considered to be the prototypic systemic fibrotic disorder. Despite currently available therapeutic approaches SSc has a high mortality rate owing to the development of SSc-associated interstit...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune connective tissue disease characterized by small vessel vasculopathy, autoantibodies, and skin or visceral organ fibrosis (lung, oesophagus, kidney etc.) as a result of extracellular collagen deposition. The cancer risk is higher in many rheumatic diseases, including SSc. Various defined malignancies may develop in 3%-11% of patients with SSc. These sol...

Background Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterised by vascular dysfunction and multi-organ fibrosis, with the heart commonly involved. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) in SSc may be direct or indirect, but often remains subclinical. SSc patients with apparent cardiovascular clinical features are at greater risk of deterioration and premature cardiovascular death, often from complications of myoca...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an idiopathic autoimmune disease with a heterogeneous clinical phenotype ranging from limited cutaneous involvement to rapidly progressive diffuse SSc. The most severe SSc and pathologic manifestations result uncontrolled fibrotic process involving the skin various internal organs. molecular mechanisms responsible for initiation progression of have not been fully elu...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by diffuse fibrotic and degenerative change in vessels, skin and internal organs [1]. Kidney involvement, as manifested by renal failure, was first described in SSc in 1863 [1]. The single most lifeCorresponding author: Der-Yuan Chen, MD, PhD. Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital. No. 160, Sec...