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Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic, rare, and idiopathic disease characterized by the presence of microcirculatory and immune alterations followed by fibrosis. It is clinically heterogeneous and may present a rapid and progressive involvement that leads to disability and death. Over the years, th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Freixo, Armanda, Abreu, Cecília
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9820582/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36628007
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.32291
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author Freixo, Armanda
Abreu, Cecília
author_facet Freixo, Armanda
Abreu, Cecília
author_sort Freixo, Armanda
collection PubMed
description Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic, rare, and idiopathic disease characterized by the presence of microcirculatory and immune alterations followed by fibrosis. It is clinically heterogeneous and may present a rapid and progressive involvement that leads to disability and death. Over the years, the approach has changed with an increasing focus on early diagnosis. Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) and puffy fingers are "red flags" to refer the patients to rheumatology to detect and start the appropriate treatment of such a rare and complex disease. We present a case of a 75-year-old woman with edema and bright erythema on the back and palm of the hands, telangiectasias of the face, and RP with three years of evolution. The aim of this case is to recall the importance of primary care physicians in recognizing the main clinical manifestations of SSc that are sometimes undervalued.
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spelling pubmed-98205822023-01-09 Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner Freixo, Armanda Abreu, Cecília Cureus Family/General Practice Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic, rare, and idiopathic disease characterized by the presence of microcirculatory and immune alterations followed by fibrosis. It is clinically heterogeneous and may present a rapid and progressive involvement that leads to disability and death. Over the years, the approach has changed with an increasing focus on early diagnosis. Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) and puffy fingers are "red flags" to refer the patients to rheumatology to detect and start the appropriate treatment of such a rare and complex disease. We present a case of a 75-year-old woman with edema and bright erythema on the back and palm of the hands, telangiectasias of the face, and RP with three years of evolution. The aim of this case is to recall the importance of primary care physicians in recognizing the main clinical manifestations of SSc that are sometimes undervalued. Cureus 2022-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9820582/ /pubmed/36628007 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.32291 Text en Copyright © 2022, Freixo et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Family/General Practice
Freixo, Armanda
Abreu, Cecília
Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title_full Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title_fullStr Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title_full_unstemmed Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title_short Early Diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis: The Role of General Practitioner
title_sort early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis: the role of general practitioner
topic Family/General Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9820582/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36628007
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.32291
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