Prevalence and clinical correlates of pruritus in patients with systemic sclerosis: an updated analysis of 959 patients
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: One previous study has estimated the prevalence of pruritus in SSc, but that study had important limitations due to a relatively small sample size. The present study updates the analyses of the previous study using a substantially larger patient sample. The objectives were to (i) document the proportion of patients who experience pruritus on most days overall and by disease duration and (ii) identify clinical correlates of pruritus. METHODS: Patients from the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group Registry ≥1 year after registry enrolment were asked on two consecutive annual visits whether they had experienced pruritus in the past month on most days and underwent clinical history and medical examination. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess the association between sociodemographic and clinical variables and pruritus. RESULTS: Among 959 patients, 42.6% reported pruritus. Of 693 patients with data for both visits, 333 (48%) did not report pruritus at either visit, 209 (30%) reported pruritus at both visits and 151 (22%) reported pruritus at one, but not the other, visit. The presence of pruritus was independently associated with greater skin involvement [odds ratio (OR) = 1.02, 95% CI 1.00, 1.04, P = 0.017] and greater gastrointestinal involvement (OR = 1.24, 95% CI 1.04, 1.48, P = 0.018). CONCLUSION: Pruritus is common in SSc across the course of the disease and has small but statistically significant associations with the degree of skin involvement and gastrointestinal system involvement.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".