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The treatment of systemic sclerosis (SSc) represents a great clinical challenge because of the complex disease pathogenesis including vascular, fibrotic, and immune T- and B-lymphocyte-mediated alterations. Therefore, SSc should be treated by combined or sequential therapies according to prevalent clinico-pathogenetic phenotypes. Some preliminary data suggest that rituximab (RTX) may downregulate the B-cell over expression and correlated immunological abnormalities.

Here, we describe a series of 10 SSc patients (4 M and 6 F, mean age 46 ± 13.5SD years, mean disease duration 6.3 ± 2.7SD years; 5 pts had limited and 5 diffuse SSc cutaneous subset) treated with one or more cycles of RTX (4 weekly infusions of 375 mg/m²). The main indications to RTX were interstitial lung fibrosis, cutaneous, and/or articular manifestations unresponsive to previous therapies; ongoing treatments …