Back
Prognostic significance of nailfold capillary microscopy in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon and scleroderma-pattern abnormalities. A six-year follow-up study.
Journal article

Prognostic significance of nailfold capillary microscopy in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon and scleroderma-pattern abnormalities. A six-year follow-up study.

  • 1992-12-01
Published in:
  • Clinical rheumatology. - 1992
Aged
Capillaries
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Nails
Prognosis
Raynaud Disease
Scleroderma, Systemic
English The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic significance of scleroderma capillary pattern (SD-pattern) in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon. Thirty patients with a capillaroscopy examination suggestive of scleroderma (megacapillaries and/or avascularity) but without clinical criteria of scleroderma (ARA criteria) were reevaluated 6 years after the initial clinical and capillaroscopy examinations. SD-pattern abnormalities were classified according to a semiquantitative method. Eight out of the 28 evaluated patients (28%) developed a scleroderma spectrum disorder (SDS). The presence of avascularity and/or a mean of more than two megacapillaries digit greatly enhanced the percentage of evolution toward SDS (70%/88% respectively). Most of the patients with few enlarged capillaries and no capillary rarefaction at entry had primary acrocyanosis (11/15). None of them developed SDS. The microangiopathy disappeared during the follow-up period in most of these patients (14/15). These results confirm the prognostic value of SD-pattern capillary abnormalities for SDS. Primary acrocyanosis, a benign clinical entity should be considered in presence of few megacapillaries and without capillary rarefaction.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/126186
Statistics
Document views: 30 File downloads: