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Emerging Evidence and Treatment Perspectives from Randomized Clinical Trials in Systemic Sclerosis: Focus on Interstitial Lung Disease.

Author
Abstract
:

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex rare autoimmune disease with heterogeneous clinical manifestations. Currently, interstitial lung disease (ILD) and cardiac involvement (including pulmonary arterial hypertension) are recognized as the leading causes of SSc-associated mortality. New molecular targets have been discovered and phase II and phase III clinical trials published in the last 5 years on SSc-ILD will be discussed in this review. Details on the study design; the drug tested and its dose; the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study; the concomitant immunosuppression; the outcomes and the duration of the study were reviewed. The two most common drugs used for the treatment of SSc-ILD are cyclophosphamide and mycophenolate mofetil, both supported by randomized controlled trials. Additional drugs, such as nintedanib and tocilizumab, have been approved to slow pulmonary function decline in SSc-ILD. In this review, we discuss the therapeutic alternatives for SSc management, offering the option to customize the design of future studies to stratify SSc patients and provide a patient-specific treatment according to the new emerging pathogenic features of SSc-ILD.

Year of Publication
:
2022
Journal
:
Biomedicines
Volume
:
10
Issue
:
2
Date Published
:
2022
URL
:
https://www.mdpi.com/resolver?pii=biomedicines10020504
DOI
:
10.3390/biomedicines10020504
Short Title
:
Biomedicines
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