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ORPHA:809

Mixed connective tissue disease

medium confidenceDisorder

Also known as: MCTD · Sharp syndrome

Publications

7,868

97th percentile

Trials

7

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,229

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) is a rare connective tissue disorder combining clinical features of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), polymyositis (PM) and/or rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

How rare: 1-9 / 1 000 000 — roughly one to nine people per million. In a city the size of Kolkata, perhaps a few dozen.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (1)

sharp syndrome

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    7,868 matched papers (3,956 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    7 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (2 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

7,868

7,868 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

7,868 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

3,956 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 97th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 7,868 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,229

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Zhang Y6 papers · 2026

    Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Chaigne B5 papers · 2026

    Service de Médecine Interne, Centre de Référence Maladies Systémiques Autoimmunes et Autoinflammatoires Rares d'Ile de France de l'Est et de l'Ouest, Hôpital Cochin, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Chevalier K5 papers · 2026

    Service de Médecine Interne, Centre de Référence Maladies Systémiques Autoimmunes et Autoinflammatoires Rares d'Ile de France de l'Est et de l'Ouest, Hôpital Cochin, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Mouthon L5 papers · 2026

    Service de Médecine Interne, Centre de Référence Maladies Systémiques Autoimmunes et Autoinflammatoires Rares d'Ile de France de l'Est et de l'Ouest, Hôpital Cochin, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Sacre K5 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine, Hôpital Bichat-Claude Bernard, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Ackermann F4 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine, Foch Hospital, Suresnes, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Agard C4 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine, Nantes University Hospital, University of Nantes, Nantes, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Benhamou Y4 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine, CHU de Rouen, UniRouen, Rouen, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Bonnotte B4 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Dijon University Hospital, Dijon, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Cacoub P4 papers · 2026

    Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

7

interventional trials for this specific condition

7 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 2 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

7 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 89.9th percentile).

medium confidence · 89.9th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

7 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

7 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Mixed connective tissue disease" OR "Sharp syndrome"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Mixed connective tissue disease" OR "Sharp syndrome"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 7 interventional · 7 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: MCTD

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-26T15:29:26.667Z