Pleura: In connective tissue diseases

Connective tissue diseases (CTDs) (or collagen vascular diseases) represent a heterogeneous group of immunologically mediated disorders that affects many organs of the body including pleura. Frequency, presentation, and prognosis of pleural involvement depend on the underlying CTD. Connective tissue disorders may be heritable such as Marfan syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and osteogenesis imperfecta; and autoimmune such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic sclerosis, mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), Sjögren's syndrome (SS), dermatomyositis (DM), and polymyositis (PM). The subject of this review is to describe the variety of pleural disorders observed in the most frequent types of CTD: SLE, RA, scleroderma, SS, DM, PM, and MCTD.