Assessment of damage and activity in systemic sclerosis

The determination of damage and activity in the course of a disease are imp ortant matters. Monitoring damage activity is critical in the evaluation of individual patients and in evaluating treatment efficacy in clinical trial s. A disease damage (severity) scale has been published for systemic sclero sis, A number of potential cytokine and other soluble protein markers of di sease activity for this disease have been proposed in recent publications, reviewed here, (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.