Clinical Relevance of Thoracic Echography for the Early Diagnosis of Interstitial Lung Disease in Systemic Scleroderma - Pilot Study

Diffuse interstitial lung disease (PID) is the leading cause of death in systemic scleroderma (SSc). Major progress has recently been made in its therapeutic management. Early diagnosis is essential to optimize this management. Current diagnostic techniques are based on high-resolution computed tomography on the thorax (HRCT) and pulmonary functional tests (PFT). However, these explorations have their limitations. Thus, there is a need for new techniques for a very early diagnosis of PID-SSc. Thoracic ultrasound (TUS) is an innovative, easily accessible, non-irradiating, inexpensive and painless tool. It is an emerging technique for the diagnosis of PID and has already proven its sensitivity for the detection of interstitial damage, as defined by HRCT. The main objective of the PRECOSS study is to describe the prevalence of an ultrasound interstitial syndrome in patients with SSc, free of PID-SSc (defined by the Goh criteria) detectable by HRCT.