Backby Kate Nance and
Dolores Vazquez-Abad M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center
No one knows what causes scleroderma. And, like everything else about the disease, the role heredity plays is unclear. Some diseases, like cystic fibrosis, are caused by a single defective gene that can be passed from parent or parents to a child. A child who receives this gene will always get the disease.
Scleroderma cannot be inherited in this way. It is not considered a hereditary disease.
Scleroderma can be described as a multifactorial disease. This means that many factors, possibly including a genetic predisposition, have to be present in order for the disease to occur. Other factors, acting alone or in combination, could be toxic elements, infections or stress. No one knows exactly what these factors are, but it seems clear that no single factor can cause the disease.
Evidence for genetic predisposition is conflicting.
The fact that the disease is found in all races around the world, and manifests itself in exactly the same way in all ethnic groups, and in diverse geographical areas, speaks against genetic predisposition (or environment) as a causative factor.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that there are clusters of auto-immune diseases, including scleroderma, in some families. Statistics on the incidence of this are not definitive, but families in which there is more than one case of scleroderma are uncommon.
Can a parent pass scleroderma to a child? No. Can a parent pass a predisposition to scleroderma to a child, which combined with other factors could cause the disease? Possibly, but this does not occur often.