Acro-osteolysis as an indicator of severity in systemic sclerosis.

INTRODUCTION: Systemic sclerosis is a rare disease that predominantly affects women. The Medsger severity scale has been used to assess the severity, but it requires expensive and poorly accessible studies and it does not include complications such acrosteolysis, calcinosis, pericardial disease or hypothyroidism that occur on a relatively frequent basis in this disease. There is no study that considers if comorbidities, such as primary biliary cirrhosis, are related to gravity.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the correlation between severity and the presence of such complications.

METHODS: 40 patients with systemic sclerosis, dividing them into tertiles according to severity were studied. Dichotomous variables were described using percentages, while dimensional by averages+SD. Statistical inference was performed using chi square test or Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn post-test, as appropriate. A significance at P<.05 was set.

RESULTS: Of all the complications studied there were only differences in severity with acrosteolysis. Within comorbidities, primary biliary cirrhosis is not associated with gravity.