Mixed connective tissue disease(MCTD): Symptoms, Diagnosis, Complications & Treatments
Symptoms MCTD is a disease that affects women aged 10 to 20, and it is common to have non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, myalgia, and arthralgia at first. In the end, however, there are characteristic symptoms, which differ from other connective tissue disorders as follows. First, the Raynaud phenomenon, swollen hand, and puffy finger are characteristic, and ANA shows a high tilter speckled pattern. In addition, kidney and central nervous system involvement is not often, and arthritis is a serious aspect. Unlike SLE and scleroderma, MCTD is a common symptom of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Diagnosis The anti-U1 RNP antibody is indispensable for the diagnosis of MCTD. However, this antibody is not unconditionally diagnosed. First, a positive ANA is suspected to be an early MCTD, followed by an anti-U1 RNP antibody. MCTD has a characteristic overlapping feature that tends to appear over a period of several years, and there is no universally accepted diagnostic criterion. Com...