[Skin and collagen vascular diseases]

Dermatology and rheumatology have in common that many rheumatologic diseases manifest with distinct clinical presentations on the skin. Since the skin is easily accessible both to physical examination and biopsy, rheumatologists appreciate to consult with dermatologists with experience in the clinical and pathological aspects of the rheumatic diseases with skin manifestations. Though the medical subspecialities show a tendency to an organ-particular focus, dermatologists traditionally have a multidisciplinary approach to patients and tend to communicate in a cross-disciplinary way. The grouping of the chronic inflammatory autoimmune diseases to the so called collagen vascular diseases and their further classification has lead to a synoptic understanding of these diseases. They have in common: inflammatory tissue damage, tendency to chronicity with acute exacerbations, response to high doses of systemic corticosteroids and/or immunosuppressive agents. They comprise: lupus erythematosus, dermatoniyositis, scleroderma, their combinations (mixed connective tissue disease) and the vasculitides. Their heterogeneity translates into a wide range of clinical presentations. The Skin has an important marker function, both for the diagnosis and prognosis, since there are specific correlations between clinical presentation, especially on the skin, autoantibody profiles, disease course, and prognosis. As for the limited forms of cutaneous autoimmune disease, it is important to recoqnize these distinct subsets with their typically favourable prognosis with respective to lesser aggressive therapeutic protocols.