Intravenous immunogobulin therapy for severe gastrointestinal involvement in systemic sclerosis

Gastrointestinal (GI) disease is one of the major causes of morbidity in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). The most common manifestation of GI disease is oesophageal involvement affecting 70-90% of patients. Severe GI disease is uncommon, but results in symptoms such as early satiety, pseudo-obstruction, weight loss and malnutrition. The pathogenesis is relatively poorly understood, and management focuses on symptomatic control rather than immunomodulation.

We describe two cases of patients with SSc myositis overlap syndrome with severe GI involvement who demonstrated improvements in swallowing, early satiety and diarrhoea following the administration of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg).

Clinical data related to the two cases were collected by review of medical records.

GI complications range from mild symptoms to debilitating and life threatening. We propose that IVIg may have an immunomodulatory effect in a subset of patients with SSc myositis overlap syndrome.