Peripheral neuropathy in course of progressive systemic sclerosis. Light and ultrastructural study.

Progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the connective tissue with involvement of the skin and other organs. The disease is characterized by an abnormal accumulation of collagen in all tissues and by microangiopathy. The involvement of the peripheral nervous system during PSS is very unusual and few cases are reported in the literature. A morphological study on the neuropathy associated with sclerodermia has been performed in rare cases. In this paper we demonstrate the role that the vascular lesions have in the pathogenesis of neuropathy during scleroderma. In particular, the primary role of the peripheral microangiopathy during PSS (observed in different clinical cases) is verified.