VEGFA and systemic sclerosis: Of note, in line with previous results [2, 3], pre-SSc patients also had significantly elevated serum VEGF levels compared with healthy controls (481(120,559) vs. 101(10,169); p = 0.01), which were as high as in patients with established disease (lcSSc 412(250,609) and dcSSc 634(404,941) pg/ml).