A concurrent session at the upcoming ARA ASM will focus on the pathogenesis, clinical features and treatment of this complex disease.
The 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian Rheumatology Association is almost here!
As part of the buildup to the ASM, Rheumatology Republic spoke with Professor Mandana (Mandy) Nikpour, director of the Sydney MSK Flagship Research Centre at the University of Sydney, about the concurrent session on systemic sclerosis.
Professor Nikpour is one of three presenters who will feature in the session, alongside Professor Elizabeth Volkmann (director of the scleroderma program and co-director of the connective tissue disease-related interstitial lung disease program at UCLA in the US) and Dr Laura Ross (senior research fellow, Melbourne Medical School). The session runs from 11am to 12.30pm on Sunday 4 May and will be chaired by Dr Wendy Stevens and Dr Kimti Kumar.
Professor Volkmann is slated to speak on the pathogenesis of GI manifestations in SScl and the potential implications for therapy, one of her main research interests. GI involvement is an area of SScl that is highly burdensome but poorly understood, according to Professor Nikpour.
“But when it comes to understanding why these gastrointestinal features are occurring, we’ve got quite a lot of work ahead of us in terms of understanding the pathogenesis,” Professor Nikpour told RR.
“Elizabeth Volkmann has done a lot of work looking at the role of the microbiome, and whether the microbiome somehow influences the development of the disease or its treatment.
“But she may also be able to talk about the pathogenic mechanisms of gastrointestinal involvement in SScl as a whole, because despite a lot of advances in therapeutics in other aspects of SScl, the gastrointestinal aspect seems to be the type of organ involvement for which we have the least number of truly efficacious therapies at the moment.”
Dr Ross, who completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Nikpour, is scheduled to discuss heart involvement in scleroderma – another area that has somewhat flown under the radar.
“It’s really only in recent years that we’ve come to appreciate that there is quite a lot of heart involvement in SScl, and that there are inflammatory as well as fibrotic changes that occur in the heart,” Professor Nikpour explained.
One aspect of Dr Ross’ PhD research was to compare various testing modalities such as cardiopulmonary exercise testing, cardiac MRI and echocardiography in understanding whether a SScl patient has heart involvement – and whether the involvement is likely to be problematic.
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Professor Nikpour will conclude the session by providing practical insights on the management of early diffuse cutaneous SScl.
“Early, diffuse disease is important, because it carries a substantial burden of mortality and there’s [only] a short window of opportunity to intervene,” said Professor Nikpour.
“I’m going to talk about a change in the paradigm of treating early diffuse disease, from taking the stance that nothing really works to one where we are now where we have a number of therapeutic options and unpacking what some of those therapeutic options are.”
ARA 2025 runs from 3-6 May in Adelaide, South Australia. See the meeting website for further details regarding the program, presenters and how to register.
