1. SCTC Cardiac Sub-Committee Updates Business Meeting 2015
ALESSANDRA VACCA

2. September 2015:
Examination of Mortality and the Need for Electrical Device Implantation in Systemic Sclerosis Patients with Cardiac Conduction and Rhythm Abnormalities.  

3. Objective:
to retrospectively collect SSc patients
who required pace maker (PM) or implantable cardioverter devices (ICD)
who died because of arrhythmia or conduction abnormalities
to investigate possible correlations with disease phenotype in these subgroups
To identify markers predictive of severe arrhythmias and conduction abnormalities in SSc

4. Expected results
to select about patients to include in this study
to differentiate between mild abnormalities and those leading to a fatal outcome

5. SEVERE ARRHYTHMIA OR CONDUCTION ABNORMALITIES
Which SSc patients to be included?
Patients with PM or ICD
Dead because of arrhythmia or conduction abnormalities
SEVERE ARRHYTHMIA OR CONDUCTION ABNORMALITIES

6. Next steps
Fill the forms with the data required
Search for 1-2 patients as a control group matched for sex, age, cutaneous subtype (diffuse/limited) and disease duration with no symptoms and normal ECG.
Send to
All participating centers would be co-author(s) in this work

7. Timeline
A remind will be send after ACR and in January 2016
Collect the data by March 2016
Present the results by ACR 2017