Systemic sclerosis associated with rectal cancer. Case report and a brief review of the literature.

Autoimmune diseases may appear as paraneoplastic syndromes during the course of a neoplastic disease, the most common being dermatomyositis/ polymyositis. The association of systemic sclerosis and cancer is not clear. The case of a 56-year-old male with rectal cancer and systemic sclerosis where the coexistence of the two diseases was closely related, so that scleroderma was considered a paraneoplastic syndrome rather than a concomitant morbid condition, is presented.