Generalized cutaneous calcinosis and mixed connective tissue disease.

A 49-year-old female patient with a history of fever episodes, muscular weakness, Raynaud's phenomenon, cardiac insufficiency and increasing cutaneous calcinosis over a period of 4 years is reported. Based upon clinical as well as histological and immunological findings, the disease is diagnosed as mixed connective tissue disease with generalized cutaneous calcinosis in an extent yet unpublished, to our knowledge, in this 'overlap syndrome'. The pathogenesis of cutaneous calcinosis is discussed with particular reference to the phenomenon of calciphylaxis, and some therapeutic implications are considered.