Race and association with disease manifestations and mortality in scleroderma: a 20-year experience at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center and review of the literature.

Experience suggests that African Americans may express autoimmune disease differently than other racial groups. In the context of systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), we sought to determine whether race was related to a more adverse expression of disease. Between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 2009, a total of 409 African American and 1808 white patients with scleroderma were evaluated at a single university medical center.

Long-term experience of mycophenolate mofetil for treatment of diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis.

Background: Immunosuppressive therapy may potentially alter the natural disease course of scleroderma. There have been reports of using mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) for the treatment of scleroderma skin disease.

Objective: To analyse the experience of using MMF for the treatment of active diffuse cutaneous scleroderma.

The use of blind skin biopsy in the diagnosis of intravascular B-cell lymphoma.

Intravascular B-cell lymphoma is a rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that is characterized by a clonal proliferation of lymphoblasts within small blood vessels. Patients present with nonspecific symptoms and are often only given a diagnosis at autopsy. We report a case of intravascular B-cell lymphoma, characterized by pyrexia, anemia, thrombocytopenia, and mental status decline, without obvious cutaneous manifestations, that was diagnosed with blind skin biopsy.