What is connective tissue disease?

*For medical professionals to read and refer to connective tissue disease, undifferentiated connective tissue disease, and mixed connective tissue disease.
Can’t tell the difference? We sometimes see rheumatologists prescribing a diagnosis of "connective tissue disease", sometimes "undifferentiated connective tissue disease" and "mixed connective tissue disease"
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I believe that everyone has been confused by the word "connective tissue disease", and a lot of doubts have arisen.
What is "undifferentiated"? What is "hybrid"? It seems that the name of this disease is very high, and I have never understood what the "connective tissue disease" is.
Today, Xiaobian will talk about connective tissue diseases that make you puzzled
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What exactly is connective tissue disease? To understand what connective tissue disease is, we must first understand what connective tissue is? The human body is composed of four major tissues: epithelial tissue, connective tissue, muscle tissue, and nerve tissue
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Generalized connective tissue, including blood, lymph, soft intrinsic connective tissue and firmer cartilage and bone
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Connective tissue is widely distributed in our body and has many functions such as connecting, supporting, nourishing, protecting and more
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Connective tissue constitutes almost every tissue, organ, and system in the body, and can be said to be everywhere
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Connective tissue disease is a general term for diseases that involve the connective tissue
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Therefore, connective tissue disease does not refer to a single disease, but a general term for a group of diseases
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Systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), polymyositis/dermatomyositis, Sjögren's syndrome and other diseases are all connective tissue diseases.
Although these diseases have their own specificities, But there are many common features, such as: ① multi-system involvement (that is, skin, joints, muscles, heart, kidney, hematopoietic system, central nervous system, etc.
can be involved at the same time); ② long course of disease; ③ complex disease, which may be accompanied by irregular fever , joint pain, vasculitis, visceral damage, increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, increased immune globulin, positive autoantibodies, etc.
; therefore, diseases with such common clinical manifestations are collectively referred to as connective tissue diseases
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What is undifferentiated connective tissue disease? Now that we know something about connective tissue disease, what is "undifferentiated connective tissue disease"? As far as we are more familiar with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, etc.
, these diseases are currently classified and classified according to the clinical characteristics of patients, and then the diseases are classified and named, so they have their own names and belong to specific diseases.
Types of connective tissue disease
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However, there are still some patients with connective tissue disease, although the diagnosis of connective tissue disease is considered clinically, but they cannot be classified into and meet the classification criteria of these diseases that we have summarized, then we call them "undifferentiated connective tissue disease".
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That is, undifferentiated connective tissue disease has the clinical manifestations and immunological characteristics of some connective tissue diseases, but does not meet the classification criteria of any specific disease
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It may belong to the early stages of a specific type of connective tissue disease, and as the disease progresses, it may reach the classification criteria of specific connective tissue diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus or Sjögren's syndrome
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Therefore, doctors can often see the diagnosis of "Undifferentiated connective tissue disease: lupus tendency?" "Undifferentiated connective tissue disease: Sjögren's syndrome tendency?" and so on in clinical practice
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But in some patients, it may also be a stand-alone disease that does not go on to differentiate into a type of connective tissue disease
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What is mixed connective tissue disease? I believe that some friends may say, "Then I know what mixed connective tissue disease is, that is, I have several connective tissue diseases at the same time
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" Actually, mixed connective tissue disease is also a specific type.
connective tissue disease
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This group of connective tissue diseases is characterized by mixed manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, polymyositis, scleroderma, etc.
at the same time or at different times, and there are high titer titers in serum Antinuclear antibody (ANA) and anti-U1-RNP antibody disease
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Now everyone should be clear that connective tissue diseases are actually a large category, which includes: 1.
Specific connective tissue diseases with their own names and characteristics, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and Sjögren's syndrome, etc.
2.
Mixed connective tissue disease with mixed manifestations of multiple connective tissue diseases at the same time or not at the same time; 3.
Unclassified, unnamed undifferentiated connective tissue disease
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I believe that next time you see connective tissue disease, you should not be confused again~ Source of this article: Rheumatism Leap Month Says Editor of this article: Orange Copyright Notice Channel" has been recruiting online authors for a long time, 1.
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