INTRODUCTION Localized scleroderma is an autoimmune disease primarily affecting the skin. The cause of disease remains unexplained although environmental factors are implicated, which are likely to be responsible for activation of the endothelium and subsequent inflammation leading to excessive synthesis of collagen and extracellular matrix components. AIM To determine concentrations of inter...

Eighty five patients referred because of Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) were followed up for six years. Every two years they were screened for signs and symptoms of connective tissue disease (CTD) according to a protocol, and serum was stored. Initially, 30 patients had primary RP, 16 had one symptom of CTD ('possible CTD'), 18 had two or more symptoms ('probable CTD'), and 21 had definite CTD (14 o...

25 We describe an 18-year-old male with primary atrophic profound linear scleroderma. It was not preceded by an inflammatory reaction or sclerosis, but it involved the subcutaneous and deeper tissues of the fingers. It did not involve the dermis, or show either discoloration or changes in texture. Involvement of deeper tissue and the progression of the disease suggest atypical primary atrophic ...

Drug-induced scleroderma is a rare adverse effect of some chemotherapeutic drugs, such as taxanes and bleomycin. Capecitabine, an oral fluoropyrimidine approved for the treatment of metastatic breast and colon cancer, commonly causes cutaneous side effects including the hand-and-foot syndrome (HFS). Scleroderma-like skin changes associated with HFS associated with capecitabine is rare. However,...

We have previously shown that frontoparietal scleroderma en coup de sabre, a type of linear scleroderma that affects the face and scalp, follows the lines of Blaschko, but the question whether linear scleroderma that occurs in the limbs follows Blaschko's lines has not been answered. We describe the case of a 4-year-old girl with multiple morphea showing remarkable unilateral systematized distr...

Linear scleroderma represents a unique form of localized scleroderma that primarily affects the pediatric population, with 67% of patients diagnosed before 18 years of age. When linear scleroderma occurs on the head, it is referred to as linear scleroderma en coup de sabre, given the resemblance of the skin lesions to the stroke of a sabre. Here we describe 3 pediatric patients with linear scle...

Background: The present study aimed to investigate the Nailfold Capillaroscopy (NC) features of the patients with dermatomyositis (DM) and its correlation with their disease activity indices, physical findings, and laboratory results. Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 27 DM patients above 16 years old who had referred to an(there are 3 clinics not one) outpatient rh...

Skin fibroblasts from subjects with scleroderma and control subjects were grown in tissue culture to compare the characteristics of connective tissue metabolism. A striking increase in soluble collagen (media hydroxyproline) was observed in eight of nine scleroderma cultures when they were compared with identically handled control cultures matched for the age and sex of the donor and the anatom...

Scleroderma is a rare connective tissue disease that is manifested by cutaneous sclerosis and variable systemic involvement. Two categories of scleroderma are known: systemic sclerosis, characterized by cutaneous sclerosis and visceral involvement, and localized scleroderma or morphea which classically presents benign and self-limited evolution and is confined to the skin and/or underlying tiss...

Because the current assessment of scleroderma skin through clinical skin scoring is subjective and imprecise, we investigated fully quantitative, physical measures of cutaneous involvement in the disease. First, we developed image analysis software for calculating the dermal density of colla-gen from 58 scleroderma and 327 control biopsies scanned onto our computer. Second, using a durometer ga...