Skip to main content
Search

Systemic sclerosis (SSc)

Published on May 28, 2026   30 min

A selection of talks on Physiology & Anatomy

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
My name is Chris Derk. I'm a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Pennsylvania. This talk is in regards to systemic sclerosis.
0:12
The goals of this talk will be to discuss the overview of the disease. Discuss a little bit about basic pathophysiology and the clinical manifestations of the disease. Discuss a little bit about classification, screening when somebody sees the patient in the clinic and then on follow-up, and then some up-to-date organ-specific management that is current at the time.
0:38
To start out, I'm going to talk about the pathophysiology of the disease. This is an autoimmune connective tissue disease of unknown etiology, which is characterized by the triad of fibrosis, vascular dysfunction, and immune dysregulation. The theory is that in patients who have a permissive genetic background some etiologic agent, such as an environmental factor such as a virus or a chemical agent triggers a change at the molecular and cellular level. The initial event is thought to be at the endothelial cell wall level, and this leads to inflammation and changes of the vessel wall. Transmigration of cells from the vessel into the surrounding tissue and inflammatory infiltrate, production of certain cytokines and growth factors that then leads to an increased production of collagen in both the skin, as well as other visceral organs. Then production of auto antibodies, which at this point are not thought to be directly pathogenic. Again, with this graph here,

Quiz available with full talk access. Request Free Trial or Login.

Show
Hide

Systemic sclerosis (SSc)

Embed in course/own notes