Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease: Lessons from Clinical Trials, Outcome Measures, and Future Study Design

Pulmonary involvement including interstitial lung disease (ILD) is the leading cause of mortality in patients with systemic sclerosis (scleroderma; SSc). This article reviews the current evidence based medicine regarding available therapies for SSc-ILD; discusses the lessons learned from recent SSc-ILD randomized controlled trials (RCTs); and proposes outcome measures and recommendations for design of future RCTs for SSc-ILD.