Femoral Cartilage Thickness in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis and Its Relation to Vitamin D

Abstract

cleroderma or systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare chronic disorder characterized by diffuse fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. It is an acquired rheumatic disease of unknown cause (Wendahl et al., 2019). The hallmark of the disease is thickening and tightness of the skin and of subcutaneous tissue. SSc may be confined to the skin (localised) or it may be generalised (systemic sclerosis). In the generalised form, involvement virtually of any organ systems can occur, most importantly the skin, blood vessels, lungs, kidneys, gastrointestinal tract, and the heart (Pelechas et al., 2019). Our study aimed to study levels of vitamin D in relation to the femoral cartilage thickness (FCT) in patients with SSc and to analyze the associations between the (FCT), vitamin D levels and SSc- disease activity. Our study was cross-sectional study which included 40 adult systemic sclerosis patients diagnosed according to ACR/EULAR (2013) classification criteria of systemic sclerosis (Van den Hoogen et al., 2013). All the patients were subjected to: Full history taking, clinical examination including musculoskeletal examination and laboratory investigations. Serum 25(OH) D was measured to all studied patients and femoral cartilage thickness was assessed by ultrasound.