[Cardiac and pulmonary involvement in scleroderma]

Abstract

Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disease characterised by microvascular involvement and fibrosis affecting skin, lung, heart and intestinal tract. Sixty percent of deaths are secondary to heart or lung involvement and (or) to pulmonary hypertension. Clinical expression of these complications is present only in patients with the most severe problems. Therefore, it is appropriate to systematically and repeatedly look for these complications, even in asymptomatic patients. Heart involvement can present as cardiomyopathy, pericarditis, conduction or repolarisation abnormalities and arrhythmia, sometimes leading to sudden death. Pulmonary hypertension is due either to direct involvement of pulmonary arteries or is secondary to lung fibrosis. Doppler echocardiography and lung function tests are systematically and repeatedly proposed to screen patients for pulmonary hypertension at initial diagnosis and during follow-up. Right heart catheterisation ascertains the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension. Chronic pulmonary interstitial fibrosis is the most frequent manifestation of lung involvement. High resolution computed tomography is the method of choice to make the diagnosis and to assess the severity of the lesions. Treatment is not completely standardised. However, a severe and rapidly progressing lung involvement is probably a good indication of immunosuppressive agents, such as cyclophosphamide.