Bridging the gap: a translational perspective in spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVES

Conducting an epidemiologic study on scleroderma patients referred to hospitals and tertiary centres of rheumatologic diseases in Shiraz, located in south of Iran.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was done on patients' records registered in scleroderma outpatient clinics as well as hospitals associated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Gathering data in pre-formed data sheets, descriptive analysis plus qualitative comparisons by chi-square test were done using SPSS 15.

RESULTS

In 533 medical records, female to male ratio was 7.3:1. The disease is mostly seen in 3rd and 4th decades of life. More patients had negative family histories (56.1%). 37.5% of the patients had diffuse form of the disease, 36.8% had limited one, and 17.3% had overlap syndrome, mostly, by lupus erythematosus (33%). Most common first presentation was Raynaud phenomenon (40.7%). Two most prevalent clinical manifestations were skin thickening (97.2%) and gastrointestinal involvement (68.9%). Clinical presentations were compared between three most common types of the disease plus various stages of life. Among recorded capillaroscopies, active form was the most prevalent one (38.3%). In documented serologic markers, the most common positive one was anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) (75.6%). Two most common etiologies of hospitalisation were digital ulcer (30.9%) and pulmonary fibrosis (5.7%). The most common cause of death (17) was pulmonary fibrosis (35.2%).

CONCLUSION

This study is the first epidemiologic survey on Iranian scleroderma patients with significantly large sample size compared to previous studies worldwide. It can thus provide some guidance for further multi-provincial, multinational and interracial studies on scleroderma.