Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan;52(1):e13672.
doi: 10.1111/eci.13672. Epub 2021 Aug 31.

Predictive value of laser speckle contrast analysis in systemic sclerosis. A systematic review and pilot study

Amber Vanhaecke  1   2 , Claire Debusschere  1   2 , Maurizio Cutolo  3 , Vanessa Smith  1   2   4 ; EULAR Study Group on Microcirculation in Rheumatic Diseases
Affiliations

Predictive value of laser speckle contrast analysis in systemic sclerosis. A systematic review and pilot study

Amber Vanhaecke et al. Eur J Clin Invest. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Objectives: To assess whether tools to functionally examine the microcirculation, such as laser speckle contrast analysis (LASCA), are predictive of ischaemic digital trophic lesions ([i]DTL) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).

Methods: First, a systematic review (according to PRISMA) was conducted to identify studies describing a link between LASCA and SSc-related (i)DTL. In the additional pilot study, consecutive SSc patients underwent clinical and LASCA examinations (to assess the peripheral blood perfusion [PBP] of both hands) at enrolment. For one year, a monthly telephone survey was conducted to investigate (i)DTL occurrence. Logistic regression and ROC analysis were performed.

Results: None of the three manuscripts retained through the systematic review examined the predictive value of LASCA for future (i)DTL. In our pilot study, 7/106 (6.6%) SSc patients developed at least one iDTL during follow-up, with PBP not found to be predictive (OR = 0.995, p = .418; ROC-AUC = 0.597). Post hoc, when only patients not taking vasodilators were analysed (n = 57), all three who developed iDTL had an average PBP ≤ 70 PU, while only 9/54 (16.7%) patients without iDTL occurrence had such values.

Conclusion: A predictive role of LASCA for (i)DTL has not yet been described in the literature and could also not be attested by our additional pilot study, due to a lower-than-expected iDTL incidence in our day-to-day SSc population in which patients were allowed to continue their vasodilator medication. However, the promising observations in the subgroup of vasodilator-naïve patients encourage further investigation of this potential added value of LASCA.

Keywords: EULAR Study Group on Microcirculation in Rheumatic Diseases; digital trophic lesion; laser speckle contrast analysis; microcirculation; systematic literature review; systemic sclerosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Cutolo M, Soldano S, Smith V. Pathophysiology of systemic sclerosis: current understanding and new insights. Expert Rev Clin Immunol. 2019;15(7):753-764.
    1. Denton CP, Khanna D. Systemic sclerosis. Lancet. 2017;390(10103):1685-1699.
    1. Herrick AL. Vascular function in systemic sclerosis. Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2000;12(6):527-533.
    1. Belch JJ. Raynaud's phenomenon. Curr Opin Rheumatol. 1989;1(4):490-498.
    1. Medsger TA Jr. Natural history of systemic sclerosis and the assessment of disease activity, severity, functional status, and psychologic well-being. Rheum Dis Clin North Am. 2003;29(2):255-273.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources