Many conditions presenting with clinical hard skin and tissue fibrosis can be confused with systemic sclerosis (scleroderma). These disorders have very diverse etiologies and often an unclear pathogenetic mechanism. Distinct clinical characteristics, skin histology, and disease associations may allow one to distinguish these conditions from scleroderma and from each other. A prompt diagnosis is...

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF), previously known as nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy, is an emerging systemic fibrosing disorder that develops in the setting of renal insufficiency. Nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy (NFD) is a fibrosing condition of the skin which shows an increased number of dendritic cells, fibroblasts and thickened collagen fibers resembling scleromyxedema. It is charact...

70 Papular elastorrhexis (PE) is a rare disorder of elastic tissue characterized by asymptomatic, nonfollicular, whitish or flesh-coloured, monomorphous, discrete, oval to round papules [1–5]. One to five mm-sized papules are symmetrically distributed on the chest, abdomen, back and upper limbs [1, 3, 4]. Some PE cases may be underestimated because of the asymptomatic course of the lesions or m...

The presence of corns can be considered as a marker for ulceration as the mechanical forces that cause corns and Calluses can also rupture portions of subcutaneous vascular plexus. In healthy patients this may be of minimal significance, but in patients with connective tissue disease it may herald extensive skin ulceration or vasculitis.[5] Thus, corns can be regarded as a sign of the onslaught...

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) is a severe iatrogenic disease that affect patients with impaired renal function exposed to gadolinium-based contrast agents. Clinically, symptoms develop within days or weeks after the exposure and mimic a scleromyxedema. The causal relationship between use of gadolinium-based contrast agents and NSF led to develop clinical guidelines aiming to limit the use...