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http://www.medicinaeinformazione.com/ When you have some symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of connective tissue disease - such as lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis... - the problem arises of identifying it through some diagnostic criteria, but if some of the parameters indicated by the international guidelines are missing, you may be in the presence of an Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease, an autoinflammatory disease with the most varied symptoms that can be silent even for years and then reappear at a distance with completely different manifestations. This naturally makes it extremely difficult to make a certain diagnosis and this is why laboratory tests and clinical symptoms must be analyzed carefully, possibly supported by instrumental investigations that can provide the necessary information. Let's talk about all this with Prof. Fernando Aiuti, Professor Emeritus of Immunology at La Sapienza University in Rome, who explains to us what are the most common symptoms affecting the connective tissue and which organs are most affected, which laboratory tests are priorities and how to interpret them, which further tests are necessary, which therapies to control the disease and which follow-up over time to evaluate the evolution of Connective Tissue Disease, because in a third of patients an undifferentiated connective tissue disease tends to evolve into a disease such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, in a third it tends to remain stable over time with long latency periods and in a third it regresses. It is essential for patients who have to undergo a large number of tests over the years to be able to count on the recognition of a rare disease with the possibility of exemption from the ticket for all investigations related to the pathology.