Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Seelmann, Daniela
• Poblete, María Paz
• Saavedra, Silvana
• Madrid, Ana María
• von Muhlenbrock, Christian
• Estay, Camila
• Goecke, Annelise

Titel

Gastric dysrhythmias in patients with early systemic sclerosis: a cross-sectional study

Ist Teil von

• Rheumatology advances in practice, 2024, Vol.8 (2), p.rkae041-rkae041

Ort / Verlag

England: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Abstract Objectives Gastric involvement in patients with early systemic sclerosis (SSc) has not been previously investigated. We aim to evaluate the association of gastric dysrhythmias with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and nailfold video capillaroscopy (NVC). Methods Cross-sectional study. Patients with early SSc, completed the UCLA GIT 2.0 questionnaire, performed an NVC, and a surface Electrogastrography (EGG). Descriptive statistics was used for demographic and clinical characteristics and Fisher and Kendall Tau tests were used for association analysis. Results 75 patients were screened, 30 patients were consecutively enrolled, 29 performed the EGG and 1 patient had a non-interpretable NVC. 29/30 were female with a mean age of 48.7 years (25–72). The mean disease duration from the first non-RP symptom was 22.6 +/-10.8 months and most of the patients had limited disease (76.6%). Total GIT 2.0 score symptoms were moderate-severe in 63% of the participants and 28/29 had an abnormal EGG. Bradygastria was the most common pattern present in 70% of the participants. NVC patterns: 17% early, 34% active, 28% scleroderma-like, 14% non-specific, and 2 patients had a normal NVC. There was no association between severe GI symptoms or NVC patterns and severely abnormal EGG, but the presence of bradygastria was associated with severe impairment in the social functioning area (p 0.018). Conclusions Gastric dysmotility is common in early SSc and there is a lack of correlation between GI symptoms and NVC scleroderma patterns. EGG is a sensitive, cheap, and non-invasive exam, that may be an alternative to early diagnosis of GI involvement. Lay Summary What does this mean for patients? Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease that may be associated with thickening and scarring of the skin and internal organs. One of the internal organs that may be affected is the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, including the stomach, which leads to bothersome symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and feeling full very quickly. Unfortunately, there is still no proven treatment that reverses this condition in the GI tract. In our study, we performed a non-invasive exam called electrogastrography (EGG), which evaluates if your stomach is moving appropriately, and a GI symptoms questionnaire, to see if symptoms were associated with abnormalities in the EGG. We found that most of the people with early systemic sclerosis in our study had an abnormal EGG, but there was no association with symptom severity. This means that, EGG could allow us to make an earlier diagnosis of GI involvement, even in the absence of symptoms, in a non-invasive way. Early diagnosis is important because future studies could address how to treat GI involvement and how to avoid worsening symptoms.