IL17A and systemic sclerosis: The infiltration of IL-17+ cells, expressed as the number of cells showing superficial and deep dermal infiltration under × 400 magnification, was significantly increased in skin from lesions of early SSc patients (superficial dermis: 7.5 ± 1.6 cells; deep dermis: 9.1 ± 1.8 cells) compared with late SSc patients (superficial dermis: 1.2 ± 0.8 cells; deep dermis: 1.0 ± 0.7 cells, P < 0.01) and healthy controls (superficial dermis: 0.8 ± 0.4 cells; deep dermis: 0.6 ± 0.5 cells, P < 0.01, Figure 2A, B).