Scleroderma: immunopathogenesis and treatment

✍ Scribed by Noel R Rose; Natasha Leskovsek

• Book ID: 104298961
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 128 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-5699
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-5699(98)01322-x

✦ Synopsis

cleroderma is a multisystem disease characterized by T-cell infiltration of involved tissues, fibrosis, and microvascular injury in affected organs. Potentially fatal complications of the disease include cardiomyopathy, pulmonary hypertension, and fibrosing alveolitis. Although scleroderma has been recognized for nearly 250 years, understanding of its pathogenesis remains limited, and treatment thus far has been successful only in achieving symptomatic improvement and organ-specific disease management 1 . New insights into the cellular mechanisms involved in scleroderma have identified several promising areas for therapeutic research.