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Severity and Prognosis for Scleroderma Pulmonary Involvement
This page was written by Shelley Ensz, and has not yet been medically edited. Scleroderma (SD) affects everyone differently. Just because something is listed here does not mean an individual patient will ever experience it. See Disclaimer.
Overview of Severity and Prognosis
Predictors of Morbidity and Mortality
Health Related Quality of Life Issues (HRQOL)
Overview of Severity and Prognosis for Scleroderma Pulmonary Involvement
Mortality high in patients with systemic scleroderma and pulmonary hypertension. The prognosis for patients with systemic sclerosis complicated by pulmonary hypertension is "grim," particularly among African Americans and those with interstitial lung disease. Reuters. Arthritis Rheum 2009;60:569-577.

Lung involvement is the primary cause of scleroderma-related deaths today.
Changes in causes of death in systemic sclerosis, 1972-2002. Survival of scleroderma has changed since the treatment of renal crisis became possible. The change in pattern of scleroderma-related mortality over the past 30 years implicates the lung (both pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary fibrosis) as the primary causes of scleroderma related deaths today. PubMed. Ann Rheum Dis. 2007 Feb 28. (Also see: SSc: Prognosis and Mortality and Renal Involvement)
Prognosis of Pulmonary Hypertension in Systemic Sclerosis (Scleroderma). Early diagnosis and treatment substantially improves the prognosis for pulmonary hypertension associated with systemic sclerosis (scleroderma). ISN.
Overview of PH Prognosis
Functional Classification of PH
Markers for Prognosis of PH
Personal Stories of Prognosis of PH
Predictors of Morbidity and Mortality
It's a dry subject...but what is morbidity and mortality, anyway?

Morbidity is another term for illness. A person can have several co-morbidities simultaneously. So, morbidities can range from Alzheimer's disease to cancer to traumatic brain injury. Morbidities are NOT deaths. Prevalence is a measure often used to determine the level of morbidity in a population. New York State Department of Health.

Mortality is another term for death. A mortality rate is the number of deaths due to a disease divided by the total population. If there are 25 lung cancer deaths in one year in a population of 30,000, then the mortality rate for that population is 83 per 100,000. New York State Department of Health.

Health Related Quality of Life Issues (HRQOL) for Scleroderma Pulmonary Involvement
Quality of Life with Scleroderma. The quality of life (QOL) is affected any time something prevents us from maintaining our normal routine or from doing something that we enjoy. A broken arm will affect your QOL on a temporary basis, but a chronic illness may it affect it indefinitely. ISN.
Overview of Quality of Life (QOL)
Quality of Life with Scleroderma
Symptoms and QOL
Assessing QOL
Improving on the QOL
Personal Stories
The relationship of dyspnoea to function and quality of life (QoL) in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Interstitial lung disease contributes significantly to the sense of dyspnoea, function and health realted QoL in SSc. Pulmonary hypertension, assessed echocardiographically by the pulmonary artery systolic pressure, predicts the degree of dyspnoea but not function and HRQoL in SSc. M. Baron. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2008;67:644-650. (Also see: Pulmonary Fibrosis, and Hypertension)
 
Go to Pulmonary Involvement Patient Stories
 
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