Abstract

The differential diagnosis for sclerosing skin disease is broad but there are clinical and laboratory features that can help guide clinicians to the correct diagnosis. This presentation shall provide a comprehensive review of the spectrum of sclerosing skin disease. A practical approach to interpreting the clinical, serological, microvascular imaging and histological features that can help differentiate disease states shall be presented to provide rheumatologists with a practical approach to the assessment of patients with sclerosing skin disease. Case histories shall be used to illustrate the pertinent clinical features and investigative approaches that can help distinguish systemic sclerosis from other sclerosing skin conditions such as scleroedema, pan-sclerotic morphoea, lipodermatosclerosis and chronic graft versus host disease. A specific focus shall be placed on the role of autoantibodies in the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis, including recent work reporting the presence of novel systemic sclerosis-specific autoantibodies in patients with antinuclear antibody-negative diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis.