Vol. 1, Issue 2, Part A (2019)

Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the basic demographic and clinical features of systemic sclerosis in our patient group and to determine the relationship between the duration of disease and the development of hypertension in scleroderma patients. Settings and Design: Systemic sclerosis is a rare, autoimmune disease with a limited or widespread involvement of connective tissue of different organs. In the literature, it is recommended that each center following the scleroderma population remove their patient data. Methods and Material: Patients who were followed up with the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis were included in our study. The duration of the disease, the accompanying diseases, basic demographic characteristics, inflammation markers and echocardiographic characteristics of the patients were evaluated. A total of 150 patients were included in the study (87.3% female, mean age 47.7). The duration of the disease was 5.41 years. Results: 37% of the patients had hypertension. There was a positive correlation between disease duration and hypertension (r: 0.278, p: 0.001). Echocardiographic evaluation revealed pulmonary hypertension in 10 patients. Hypertension was more prevalent in this disease group than the population with the same characteristics. As the disease duration increased, the incidence of systemic hypertension increased. Conclusions: The first of the striking findings in our study was that the rate of pulmonary hypertension due to scleroderma was found to be similar to that in other Middle Eastern societies. In the second important finding, peripheral connective tissue involvement of scleroderma was found to be important in the development of systemic hypertension.