Ethics approval and consent to participate

All data were pseudonymized. The ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University Hospital had no objections against the conductance of the study (internal number S126/2021). The study complies with the Declaration of Helsinki in its current version. Participating patients consented to the data analysis.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

PX has received personal fees from MSD and OMT outside the submitted work.

OG, NBe, SHaa and NM declare that they have no competing interests related to this study.

CAE has received speaker fees from MSD outside the submitted work.

SHar and BE received travel fees, consulting fees, speaker fees, and/or honoraria from Actelion, MSD, Bayer and OMT, outside the submitted work.

AMM has received personal fees from Bayer, outside the submitted work.

CN has received consulting fees, speaking fees, and/or honoraria from Actelion, MSD, Boehringer, Novartis, Bayer, and AstraZeneca (less than $10,000 each).

NBl has received consulting fees, speaker fees, and/or honoraria from AbbVie, BMS, Pfizer, Roche, Novartis, UCB, Janssen-Cilag, Novartis, SOBI, Actelion outside the submitted work.

HML has received consulting fees, speaking fees, and/or honoraria from AbbVie, BMS, Pfizer, Cellgene, Medac, GSK, Roche, Chugai, Novartis, UCB, Janssen-Cilag, AstraZeneca, and Lilly (less than $10,000 each) and research support from AbbVie, MSD, BMS, Cellgene, Medac, GSK, Roche, Chugai, Novartis, UCB, Janssen-Cilag, AstraZeneca, Lilly, Baxter, SOBI, Biogen, Actelion, Bayer Vital, Shire, Octapharm, Sanofi, Hexal, Mundipharm, and Thermo Fisher.

CF has received consulting fees, speaker fees form Abbvie, AstraZeneca, BMS, Celagene, Celltrion, Galapagos, Janssen, Lilly, MSD, Medac, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, UCB.

SU received grants from the Swiss National Science foundation and the Zurich Lung League, travel support and speakers’ fees from Janssen SA, Switzerland, Bayer SA, Germany, MSD, Switzerland, Orpha Swiss and Novartis.

OD has/had consultancy relationship with and/or has received research funding from and/or has served as a speaker for the following companies in the area of potential treatments for systemic sclerosis and its complications in the last three calendar years: 4P-Pharma, Abbvie, Acceleron, Alcimed, Amgen, AnaMar, Arxx, AstraZeneca, Baecon, Blade, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Corbus, CSL Behring, 4P Science, Galapagos, Glenmark, Horizon, Inventiva, Janssen, Kymera, Lupin, Medscape, Miltenyi Biotec, Mitsubishi Tanabe, MSD, Novartis, Prometheus, Redxpharma, Roivant, Sanofi and Topadur. Patent issued “mir-29 for the treatment of systemic sclerosis” (US8247389, EP2331143).

EG has received fees for lectures and/or consultations from Actelion, Bayer AG, Ferrer, GSK, Janssen and MSD.