Is subclinical atherosclerosis more frequent in systemic sclerosis patients compared to healthy subjects and rheumatoid arthritis patients, and can it be detected by standard cardiovascular risk indices?
Standard cardiovascular risk indices are insufficient to detect subclinical atherosclerosis in systemic sclerosis patients, despite it being as frequent as in rheumatoid arthritis.
Subclinical atherosclerosis in SSc patients is more frequent than in HS, but is as frequent as in RA patients in which accelerated atherosclerosis is clearly defined. CV risk indices for the general population are considerably insufficient to detect SSc patients with atherosclerosis.
Özen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.