Andrea Lobo, PhD,  science writer—

Having scleroderma increases the risk of developing diseases affecting blood vessels of the brain or heart, known as cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, a review study found. Relative to controls, the risk of stroke — caused by poor blood flow to the brain — in scleroderma patients was 64% higher,…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug status to BLR-200, a medication that BLR Bio — a company stemming from the Helix 51 biomedical incubator at Rosalind Franklin University — is developing for scleroderma. According to Ronald Kaplan, PhD, the…

People with scleroderma who feel more socially isolated are more likely to report being dissatisfied with life, but this association is partially attenuated in those who show more resilience, according to a recent study. Resilience refers to the ability to adapt to and recover from challenging life experiences, such…

Certa Therapeutics’ FT011, an investigational oral therapy for systemic sclerosis (SSc), has been granted fast track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It comes following Phase 2 clinical trial data that showed that FT011 was safe and well tolerated, and led to clinically meaningful improvements…

AM1476, AnaMar’s investigational anti-fibrotic medication, has been granted orphan drug status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for treating scleroderma. To get this designation, a medication must be intended to treat a life-threatening rare…

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may accelerate the development and progression of systemic sclerosis (SSc) through fibrosis (scarring), inflammation, autoantibody production, and blood vessel damage. That’s according to a study in South Korea that shows the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that’s required for the…

Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 are more likely to have worse outcomes if they also have systemic sclerosis (SSc), a study finds. This risk was assessed by a composite score that combined several clinical measures, including in-hospital mortality, invasive mechanical ventilation to help with breathing, use of medications to raise…

People with diffuse systemic sclerosis (dcSSc) — a form of scleroderma that typically involves more extensive skin damage — have key cellular differences depending on the specific self-reactive antibody they have, and on how far along the disease trajectory they are, according to a new study. These differences were…

People with systemic sclerosis (SSc) have poorer survival when they also have both interstitial lung disease (ILD) and pulmonary hypertension (PH), a study in Germany has found. Being a woman, having a higher body mass index — a measure of body fat — and better lung function were…

More than half of the people with systemic sclerosis (SSc) in a study were malnourished under recent French guidelines, one-quarter had severe malnutrition, and being malnourished associated with cardiac involvement, a study in that country reported. Gastrointestinal (GI) tract involvement, not surprisingly, also was evident in a majority of…