Cyclophosphamide improves scleroderma interstitial lung disease

Oral cyclophosphamide can produce a sustained improvement in scleroderma-related interstitial lung disease, according to a recent study.Introducing their investigation Dr Donald Tashkin and colleagues comment that whilst several retrospective studies have shown that cyclophosphamide may slow the decrease in or even improve the FVC [forced vital capacity] over time there is a lack of randomised, prospective research, "which makes it difficult to draw solid conclusions regarding the efficacy, toxicity, and risk-benefit ratio" of this approach.Therefore, Tashkin and colleagues enrolled 158 patients with scleroderma-related interstitial lung disease. Patients were randomised to receive oral cyclophosphamide (≤2 mg/kg of body weight per day) or matching placebo for one year and were followed up for an additional year....