(upbeat music) - Utah Scleroderma Group is holding its Salt Lake City Walk and fundraiser to help with awareness, education, and research.

Carolyn Buma and April Torres are here with all the details.

Let's start with you, Carolyn.

What is Scleroderma and tell us how it manifests and what some treatments are.

- Yeah.

So Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease, which means that your body attacks healthy tissue and scleroderma means hard skin.

So the body is attacking the skin and it lays down scar tissue, hardens the skin.

Patients can have it systemically, which means that you have it internally as well and so it can affect organs and typically lungs, heart, kidney, gastrointestinal tract.

- Wow, and are there treatments that are effective?

- That's the great thing is in the last decade or two there's been a lot of research and work done to where for some patients the outcomes were very grim and quick.

Research has been able to afford some treatments that slow the progression of it.

While there is no cure, patients like April and I are living longer productive lives because there are treatments now.

There's much hope.

- Great.

And April, tell us about your walk that's gonna help with research and everything else.

- Yes, so every year we have an annual walk, a fundraiser.

This year it will be Saturday, June 3rd at Liberty Park.

Registration starts at eight o'clock and the walk starts at 9.

There is a registration fee of $35, but we want anyone and everyone to come and celebrate with us.

We are joining forces with the Denver Rocky Mountain Chapter and they're celebrating 25 years of being a support group for their members.

- Great.

Well, I wish you great luck with it.

I hope you get a good turnout and thanks for being here, both of you.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming Utah Scleroderma Group's Salt Lake City Walk, it's June 3rd, registration starts at 8, the walk at 9 at Liberty Park.

Go to scleroderma.org.

That's scleroderma.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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