The National Scleroderma Foundation has recognized Vanderbilt University Medical Center as a Designated Scleroderma Research and Treatment Center for the second time since 2022.
Institutions that receive designation status provide high-quality scleroderma care, training and research. VUMC is one of 37 NSF-designated centers in the country and the only one in Tennessee.
NSF specifically recognized the multidisciplinary provider teams that support VUMC’s Systemic Sclerosis Hand Team and Systemic Sclerosis Research Programs.
“One of the best aspects of Vanderbilt is working with compassionate health care providers whose mission is excellence in care delivery while simultaneously advancing science,” said the programs’ research director, Tracy Frech, MD, MSCI, associate professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology.
Systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma, is a rare autoimmune disorder in which the immune system misguidedly attacks body tissues, notably blood vessels, causing scarring, joint contractures and other symptoms that can lead potentially to fatal breathing problems and heart failure.
VUMC’s systemic sclerosis providers are among the best in the nation, Frech said, adding that “our award is a celebration of collaborative partnerships between departments and divisions.”
The hand team includes specialists in plastic surgery, vascular medicine, rheumatology, dermatology, interventional cardiology, wound care and occupational hand therapy. They provide personalized treatment plans and patient-centered research to improve clinical outcomes for patients whose hands are significantly impaired by the disease.
Systemic sclerosis research at VUMC is focused on the autoimmune driven dysfunction of blood vessels, which results in vascular leak and fibrosis.
“There’s great interest in diagnosing the disease early before fibrosis has occurred. By understanding vascular involvement early and controlling immune dysregulation, multi-organ disease damage can be prevented,” said Frech, who holds the Rheumatology Division Directorship.
Because systemic sclerosis is highly heterogeneous, “it’s difficult for us to predict a particular patient’s course of disease and know which therapies are going to work best. Collaboration between health care providers can significantly improve outcomes for each patient,” she said.
In 2018, the Scleroderma Research Foundation launched the COllaborative National QUality and Efficacy Registry (CONQUER) to provide a longitudinal registry and biosample repository. Information gleaned from following patients over time will aid development of more effective, personalized therapies, said Frech, a CONQUER principal investigator.
Frech and Rishi Naik, MD, MSCI, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, also are members of the National Scleroderma Foundation’s Medical and Scientific Advisory Board.
