New Treatment for Tough Disease

These findings are presented in the February 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that results in excessive collagen accumulation. People with scleroderma have hardened patches on their skin, and can have heart, kidney, lung, or intestinal damage due to fibrosis.

Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma) is a protein important in fibrosis. Wu et al therefore examined skin inflammation in a mouse model of scleroderma. They found that treatment with rosiglitazone, a potent PPAR-gamma activator, reduced the symptoms of scleroderma in these mice.

They conclude that their results "indicate that rosiglitazone treatment attenuates inflammation, dermal fibrosis, and subcutaneous lipoatrophy via PPAR-gamma in a mouse model of scleroderma and suggest that pharmacological PPAR-gamma ligands, widely used as insulin sensitizers in the treatment of type-2 diabetes mellitus, may be potential therapies for scleroderma."

By American Journal of Pathology