A multicentre retrospective study of 71 scleroderma patients who had undergone muscle biopsy found 46.5% with fibrosing myopathy, 25.5% with inflammatory myopathy and 28% with autoimmune necrotising myopathy.
- During follow-up, which averaged 6.4 years, 21 patients died, mainly from cardiovascular disease (39%) or infections (29%).
- The survival rate 10 years after the appearance of the first symptom other than Raynaud’s syndrome was 80%, with no significant difference in mean survival time between the three tissue lesion groups (from 8.8 to 11.6 years).
- The risk of a cardiac event was the same for all three groups.
