Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease, affecting multiple organs in the body.  People living with the condition can suffer from severe digital ischaemia, causing reduced blood supply to the fingers or toes, skin tightening, damage to the lungs, severe gastro intestinal disease, and also heart problems.

People living with the condition have an increased mortality, with up to 26% of people dying as a result of cardiac disease triggered by SSc. Heart conditions in SSc can be hard to detect in the early stages and once symptoms occur, the five-year survival rate decreases dramatically.

Thanks to donations to our linked charity Arthritis and Inflammatory Diseases Charity, we’ve invested in Leeds based research to improve outcomes for patients with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc).

The research to support early detection and development of treatment for patients, is part of the Leeds Scleroderma Program, led by Professor Francesco Del Galdo. It will focus on the long-term impact of abnormalities found using Cardiac MRI to understand how the disease progresses.

Leeds is an internationally renowned centre of excellence for SSc, with research embedded into clinical practice, offering patients access to novel treatments and techniques to diagnose and manage their condition.

After some promising initial research findings, Dr Lesley-Anne Bissell, Consultant Rheumatologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will be working alongside Professor Sven Plein, Professor of Cardiovascular Imaging and Professor Del Galdo to explore how SSc heart involvement progresses at different stages of the disease.

Dr Bissell spoke to us about what she hopes the funding from Leeds Hospitals Charity will enable the team to discover:

“Early results from Cardiac MRI scans show that people with SSc may have abnormal heart energy use compared to healthy individuals, but more research is needed to understand how this links to different types and stages of the disease.

“These studies aim to create a research portfolio to help guide future clinical trials and help us choose the best treatments for individual patients. Due to promising early results, we have now advanced to the second round of a major British Heart Foundation (BHF) grant. We are also part of the UK CARDIO-IMID Partnership—a national network of experts in rheumatology and cardiovascular science.”