Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in people with systemic sclerosis. Rheumatologist Zsuzsanna McMahan shares her finding of a relationship between an antibody that may contribute to issues in the gastrointestinal tract in systemic sclerosis patients.
Good morning. My name is Johnny Mac Mahan and I'm going to provide you with a brief overview of our poster entitled anti vehicle and anti bodies and systemic sclerosis associations with gastric transit and extra intestinal clinical phenotype. One of the most common affected organ systems in systemic sclerosis is the gastrointestinal tract. While up to 90% of patients are affected, the presentation of gastrointestinal manifestations in systemic sclerosis is highly variable as any segment of the gut may be involved in the timing of symptom onset is often unpredictable. The lack of biomarkers can also lead to significant clinical challenges when trying to predict patients who are at high risk for rapid progression of gastrointestinal dysfunction and poor outcomes. Colin is a site of skeletal protein that binds to act in and promotes cell adhesion and gut motility. A recent study demonstrated a positive association between anti vehicle in antibody levels and gastrointestinal symptom severity measured through a self reported symptoms survey. The aim of our study was to use more objective measures of gastrointestinal dysfunction such as the whole gut transit study to determine whether anti insulin antibodies associate with specific types of gastrointestinal dis motility and to define the clinical phenotype of this group of patients. We use sarah from 88 well characterized patients with systemic sclerosis and screen the sarah for anti wrinkle in antibodies by Eliza. We then compared whole guts integrity, gastrointestinal symptoms scores and clinical features between patients with and without these antibodies. As you can see in our results in our poster 25% of our cohort had anti vehicle and anti bodies patients with anti vehicle and anti bodies were more likely to have limited scleroderma, thyroid disease and a higher or better D. L. C. O. On pulmonary function. Testing importantly, higher levels of anti vehicle and anti bodies were also associated with delayed gastric emptying on the whole gut transit study in the university. In analysis and this association importantly remained significant even after adjusting for age and sex. We conclude that our patients with anti coagulant antibodies have a distinct clinical phenotype longitudinal studies, however, are needed to determine the ability of these antibodies to predict the risk of slow gastric transit in our patients.