Georgetown University School of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 3800 Reservoir Road, LL Gorman, Washington, DC 20007, USA. Steenv@georgetown.edu
Scleroderma renal crisis (SRC) represents the classic manifestation of kidney involvement in SSc. It particularly occurs in patients with early, rapidly progressive, diffuse skin involvement. Its detection requires the assessment of a few core set variables: arterial blood pressure, serum creatinine, and urinalysis. In clinical investigations SSc patients developing arterial hypertension after the disease onset (new onset hypertension) without SRC should also be reported.