Scleroderma News

Cancer screening for high-risk patients with scleroderma should involve basic age, sex and risk factor targeted screening, paying particular attention to mammography in women and prostate-specific antigen in men, according to Ami Shah, MD, of John Hopkins University, at the virtual ACR State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium.

Patients with connective tissue disease who maintain their rheumatic therapy do not have an increased risk for COVID-19, according to a group of physicians in Italy who presented findings in an editorial published in the Journal of Rheumatology.

In the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, patients with systemic sclerosis should continue immunosuppression to avoid relapses, but should discontinue if they or someone in their household develops COVID-19 symptoms, according to a panel of experts endorsed by the World Scleroderma Foundation in a series of Q&A-style recommendations published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

A disease like systemic sclerosis demands a multifaceted approach. Comprehensive clinical interventions are required because the disease affects the skin, lungs, heart and kidneys, among other systems. But education is also necessary. While systemic sclerosis impacts between 60,000 and 75,000 Americans and can shorten life expectancy by one or two decades, it often gains far less attention than more high-profile conditions.

Older patients with chronic autoimmune rheumatic diseases — rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and systemic sclerosis — who have sustained disease activity or organ damage should be evaluated for cognitive deficits, according to a review published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a disabling autoimmune disorder that can cause diffuse fibrosis and vascular abnormalities in the skin, joints, and internal organs. Affecting approximately 2 million people worldwide, SSc is challenging to diagnose due to its nonspecific symptomatology and rare nature.

The very idea of social distancing runs contrary to congregation and celebration, two things that lie at the core of New Orleans culture. It is for this reason, perhaps, that New Orleanians were initially resistant to quarantine measures to contain COVID-19. But as the death toll climbed and Mayor LaToya Cantrell canceled St. Patrick’s Day festivities, the city slowly awakened to the idea that this was serious business.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in patients with systemic sclerosis and concomitant arterial hypertension demonstrate an independent risk factor for developing scleroderma renal crisis, according to data published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

A newly formed organization, the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance, has launched an international registry to collect data on patients with rheumatic diseases who may or may not have contracted the infection that is causing the global pandemic. The aim is to aid clinicians and researchers in real time as the situation evolves.

The situation with COVID-19, or the currently circulating coronavirus, is developing so rapidly that new information may likely be available by the time you reach the end of this paragraph. But along with factual information, misinformation also abounds on social media, on cable news channels and in print publications. Healio Rheumatology will attempt to set the record straight for health care providers looking to sort out fact from fiction.