Established in 1980, the Program has evaluated more than 3500 individuals with scleroderma, making it the largest such program in the United States. The clinical goals of the program are to deliver the highest quality of care in a cost effective fashion.
Heavy emphasis is placed on ambulatory management strategies and on patient education.
Clinical research focuses on development of effective therapies for disease including studies of new agents with the potential to modify disease outcome as well as new approaches to symptom palliation. Development of validated measures of efficacy and predictable measures of disease outcome are principal program goals. Translational laboratory research seeks biologic surrogates of disease activity as well as continuing studies of disease pathogenesis.