The role of chest MRI in the evaluation of interstitial lung disease in patients with systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex connective disorder characterized by immune dysregulation and microvascular injury, which lead to fibrosis of the skin and internal organs and their functional failure. Imaging techniques are very important both in the diagnosis process and in the follow-up of patients with ILDs. Chest computed tomography (CT) represents the current radiological gold standard for ILD evaluation, thanks to its speed and reliability. The main problem with CT is the radiation exposure, especially in young patients, where multiple CT scans could be necessary during the chronic course of this pathology. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method that can potentially offer a more in-depth assessment of the entire lung parenchyma and is the most promising candidate to establish a new radiological gold standard in the study of ILD with the advantage of not exposing patients to ionizing radiations. MRI is a multiparametric method and its benefits are not intended for a better morphological evaluation of the lung parenchyma, since they do not provide additional information in this sense, but allow to obtain a better characterization of the tissues compared to CT and functional information. The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of magnetic resonance imaging, in the follow-up of patients with SSc-related ILDs, with CT and correlating the results of these methods with the clinical parameters of these patients