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These patients demonstrated the typical immunogenetic, clinical, and serologic findings of MCTD, and the condition rarely evolved into systemic lupus erythematosus or systemic sclerosis. The majority of patients had favorable outcomes, with pulmonary hypertension being the most frequent disease-associated cause of death. Intramolecular spreading of autoantibody reactivity against snRNP polypeptides was observed, followed by "epitope contraction" and ultimate disappearance of anti-snRNP autoantibodies during prolonged disease remission.
Burdt et al. (Sat,) studied this question.