Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare, chronic connective tissue disease affecting the skin, vessels, musculoskeletal system and internal organs. Despite advances in pharmacotherapy of organ manifestation and new knowledge about the pathogenesis of SSc, there is still no effective treatment of this serious disease.
The aim of this review is to introduce traditional, most commonly used experimental animal models of SSc, clarify their basic pathomechanism, describe the advantages and limitations and outline their use in preclinical tests of potential therapeutic agents with subsequent clinical trials in patients with SSc.