Relaxin (Releasin) Therapy in Diffuse Progressive Scleroderma

Abstract

The results of all methods of treatment in 38 cases of diffuse progressive scleroderma were reported from this clinic in 1953.¹Twenty-five of these patients had been subjected to extensive sympathectomy. The results of all forms of medical treatment, including steroid therapy, had been disappointing. A follow-up study ranging from 3 months to 11½ years was made, and we concluded that extensive sympathectomy gave the best palliative results, having an ameliorating influence in about 88% of patients. Improvement was noted chiefly in the skin areas of the face, yoke, upper arms, and legs and symptomatically on the esophagus and larynx. Sympathectomy from the first to the fifth thoracic segments is of value when the face, yoke, and arms are involved but not the esophagus. However, since the esophagus was involved in 45% of all our patients and in 65% of those with facial involvement and