PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC SCLEROSIS ASSOCIATING OTHER AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES HAVE A MILDER DISEASE COURSE

Background and objectives. Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a multisystem connective tissue disease (CTD), being one of the most heterogeneous diseases of the spectrum of CTDs. It may associate other autoimmune diseases (AIDs), therefore in this study we aimed to evaluate the prevalence of other AIDs in a cohort of patients with SSc and to evaluate their prognosis in comparison to patients with SSc without this association. Patients and methods. We performed a retrospective study in patients with SSc satisfying the ACR 1980 or the ACR/EULAR 2013 criteria, who were evaluated between January 2005 and May 2014 in our SSc center. These patients were investigated according to the EUSTAR recommendations, including modified Rodnan Skin Score (mRSS), lung function tests (LFT), echocardiography etc. As a control group for evaluating the prevalence of the AIDs we used all patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) visiting our clinic between January-December 2005. Data of all RA patients were collected from the electronic database of the hospital. All AIDs mentioned in the discharge diagnoses were recorded. Between-group comparisons were made with the chi-square test for nominal variables and with