Systemic sclerosis & Raynaud's
Telomere Length of Peripheral Blood Leukocytes Predicts Disease Severity and Worse Survival in Systemic Sclerosis
Authors' conclusion
Short PBL-TL is associated with pulmonary disease severity and predicts worse SSc clinical outcomes.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with SSc and healthy controls
- Participants
- 244 vs 314
- Exposure
- SSc vs healthy controls; Peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length (PBL-TL) vs SSc manifestations and outcomes
- SScn = 244
- Healthy controlsn = 314reference
- Outcome
- Relationship of PBL-TL with SSc-specific disease manifestations and outcomes
Methodological detailscase-control comparison with healthy controls, multivariate modeling, longitudinal subset
- Case-control comparison with healthy controls
- Multivariate modeling
- Longitudinal subset
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
PBL-TL
- Shortest PBL-TL in concurrent ILD and pulmonary hypertension (PH)
- P = 0.04
- Shorter PBL-TL associated with hospitalizations
- P < 0.01
- Shorter PBL-TL associated with worse event-free survival
- P = 0.03
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Rate of PBL-TL shortening, early SSc vs longer disease duration
- Faster PBL-TL shortening in early SSc
- P = 0.04
Tissue TL (telomere FISH)
- TL shorter in SSc-ILD lung epithelial cells
- P = 0.01
- No difference in epithelial cells of SSc skin
- P = 0.82
Original publication
Telomere Length of Peripheral Blood Leukocytes Predicts Disease Severity and Worse Survival in Systemic Sclerosis. Arthritis Rheumatol. Published 2 January 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →