Personalized Medicine for Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare immune-mediated connective tissue disease with high morbidity and mortality. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is now the leading cause of death for patients with SSc. While several therapeutic agents have been approved for SSc-ILD, opportunities remain for a personalized medicine approach to improve patient outcomes. The purpose of this narrative review is to summarize the current state of personalized medicine for SSc-ILD and future directions to facilitate earlier diagnosis, disease stratification, prognostication, and determination of treatment response. We also review opportunities for personalized medicine approaches within clinical trial design for SSc-ILD.

The management of SSc-ILD remains challenging due to its variable clinical course and current deficits in predicting which individuals will develop progressive pulmonary fibrosis. There have additionally been many challenges in clinical trial design due to limitations in enrichment strategies. Emerging data suggest that serum, radiologic, and other novel biomarkers could be utilized to assess disease activity and treatment response on an individual level.

Personalized medicine is emerging as a way to address unmet challenges in SSc-ILD and has applicability for identifying stratifying, prognostic, and therapeutic markers for routine clinical care and clinical trial design.