Infectious complications of systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare disease responsible for a significantly decreased survival, especially in diffuse forms of the disease with lung, digestive, renal and/or cardiac damages. Infections are responsible for 2 to 9% of deaths among SSc patients. Very few studies specifically described infections during SSc. Digital ulcers are often responsible for infectious complications among SSc patients. The prognosis of SSc patients hospitalized in intensive care unit for infectious complications is unfavourable in most of the cases. Patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) treated with immunosuppressant may develop opportunistic infections. However, infectious complications are rare among patients with ILD treated with cyclophosphamide. Lung and hematopoietic stem cell transplantations lead to a high risk of death among SSc patients, especially because of infections, even if prognosis after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation seems better in recent studies.