GI symptoms in systemic scleroderma unrelated to disease-specific medications

New research presented this week at ACR Convergence 2022, the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting, found no clear association between immunosuppressive or anti-fibrotic medications and worsening gastrointestinal symptoms in early systemic scleroderma.

Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) symptoms are among the most common complications in systemic sclerosis (SSc, scleroderma), a disease marked by progressive vasculopathy and fibrosis. Clinicians monitor seven GIT symptoms-reflux, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, fecal incontinence, and emotional and social well-being-using the University of California, Los Angeles Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium Gastrointestinal Tract Questionnaire (UCLA-GIT 2.0, GIT 2.0), a validated, patient-reported outcome measure. Yet distinguishing disease-related from iatrogenic symptoms can be challenging. This research focused on understanding the relationship of GIT symptoms to medication use.

The study included 399 participants in the Collaborative National Quality and Efficacy Registry (CONQUER) for Scleroderma, a platform that seeks to better understand the development of systemic sclerosis disease in patients less than five years from the first non-Raynaud's symptom. Patients included had completed at least two serial GIT 2.0 questionaires. They were categorized by total GIT 2.0 severity and further divided into subsets including no change (none-to-mild), improvement in category, worsening in category and no change (moderate-to-severe).