Scleroderma is classified as a disease of the vascular and immune systems, and a severe connective tissue disorder. Scleroderma can range from a minor skin lesion to a debilitating and fatal disease. Although scleroderma strikes every age, sex and ethnic background, four times more females, between the ages of 25 and 55, are afflicted with scleroderma than males. The frequency increases with age in both sexes. Scleroderma is far more prevalent than muscular dystrophy or multiple sclerosis.
Figures vary on the systemic disease and there is very little information on the localized disease.
Physicians believe the rate of systemic and localized scleroderma are fairly similar. Research is funded both privately and by the Federal government. The control of collagen deposits is the subject of a number of research projects supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases both in the Skin Diseases Program and in the Arthritis Program. Developments in molecular genetics have allowed a much more fundamental approach to the control of collagen deposition.