Systemic Sclerosis: More Common than Expected New study puts prevalence four times higher than previous estimate

Systemic sclerosis is an important condition for rheumatologists, because although rare, it has a very high mortality compared to other musculoskeletal diseases, and optimal patient care is challenging and involves multidisciplinary effort," Pearce and colleagues observed. https://www.medpagetoday.com/rheumatology/generalrheumatology/73874?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2018-07-06&eun=g721819d0r&pos=3&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%202018-07-06&utm_term=Daily%20Headlines%20-%20Active%20User%20-%20180%20days Analysis of data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, a general practice database that includes approximately 6% of the U.K. population and is considered representative of the entire population, found an estimated overall incidence of 19.4 per million person-years (95% CI 18.3-20.4), according to Fiona A. Pearce, MBBS, and colleagues from Nottingham University reporting online in Clinical Rheumatology. This estimate is more than four times higher than the estimate of four per million found in a study conducted in the 1980s in the West Midlands district of England, Pearce and colleagues noted. The incidence and prevalence of SSc have been reported as having wide variations, with differences according to gender, race, and geography.