Seminars in arthritis and rheumatism
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Semin. Arthritis Rheum. · Feb 2010
Determinants of morbidity and mortality of systemic sclerosis in Canada.
To describe the morbidity and mortality in Canadian scleroderma (SSc) patients focusing on gender, SSc type, and organ-specific prognosis in a cohort of patients seen from 1994 to 2004 in a Southwestern Ontario SSc clinic. We also compared this cohort to data from the literature, which showed that mean survival in recent studies has risen to 72 months versus 48 months in earlier studies. ⋯ We conclude that cardiac involvement, dcSSc, and hypertension are associated with worse survival, and survival of patients with scleroderma is improving compared with older reports in the literature.