Scleroderma in children and adolescents

Abstract

The scleroderma disorders remain challenging conditions in pediatric rheumatology to understand pathologically and indeed for which to provide care. It is clear that much progress is being made in the clinical approach to understanding this group of group of disorders. It seems likely that the different lesions of LS may represent unique immunopathogenic mechanisms or perhaps reflect unique genetic or other characteristics of the patients themselves. To take advantage of the revolution in therapies now occurring in rheumatology it is critical that controlled clinical trials are developed with appropriate agreed upon outcome measures for both localized and systemic disease.