This study was designed to evaluate and monitor patients with EUCTD, and to determine what historical, physical, or serological features are predictive of the eventual disease process at five years follow-up. The Cooperative Systemic Studies of Rheumatic Diseases at the University of Utah Medical Center subsequently designed a ten year follow-up with the same objectives as above. A total of 31 patients entered the original five year study. By race and gender, they include: ten Caucasian males; one African American male; eleven Caucasian females; eight African American females, and one Oriental female. Twenty-six patients completed follow-up evaluations at year 1. Twenty-four patients completed follow-up at year 3, and twenty-two patients completed follow- up evaluations at year 5. A total of ten patients were withdrawn as follows: 3 patients died; 1 enrolled in 1983 as EUCTD died on 04/17/84 in a local hospital secondary to interstitial pulmonary fibrosis; 1 enrolled in 1984 with scleroderma died on 10/23/84 in a local hospital secondary to pneumonia; 1 enrolled in 1984 as EUCTD developed scleroderma in 1987 and died on 11/24/87 in DUMC secondary to restrictive lung disease; 1 patient enrolled in 1984 refuses to return for reevaluation; 1 patient moved to Maryland where she will complete the study at John Hopkins University Medical Center; 1 patient entered in 1985 moved to Indiana where she will complete the study under the care of her personal physician; 1 patient moved to Ohio where she will complete the study in Cincinnati under the care of Dr. Michael Luggen; and 3 patients have been lost to follow-up. A total of 21 patients were contacted to participate in the ten year follow-up study. Fifteen patients completed evaluations at the ten year follow-up, five patients were lost to follow-up and one patient refused participation. Follow-up data for this long-term observational study continues to be analyzed to further characterize the course of early undifferentiated connective tissue disease and its evolution to the more well defined connective tissue diseases such as SLE and systemic sclerosis. Several manuscripts have been published using these data. Copies of these manuscripts have previously been submitted to the GCRC and the IRB. The Cooperative Systemic Studies of Rheumatic Diseases has retrieved all data collection forms on each study participant. This protocol is now closed.
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