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Review
. 2018 Jun;3(2):122-131.
doi: 10.1177/2397198318757699. Epub 2018 Mar 9.

Advances in nailfold capillaroscopic analysis in systemic sclerosis

Barbara Ruaro  1 , Alberto Sulli  1 , Vanessa Smith  2 , Carmen Pizzorni  1 , Sabrina Paolino  1 , Elisa Alessandri  1 , Amelia Chiara Trombetta  1 , Maurizio Cutolo  1
Affiliations
Review

Advances in nailfold capillaroscopic analysis in systemic sclerosis

Barbara Ruaro et al. J Scleroderma Relat Disord. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune connective tissue disease characterized by early and persistent microvascular impairment which leads to functional and organic manifestations, with progressive fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. Morphological and functional assessment of the peripheral microvasculature is a must, not only for diagnosis but also for the prognosis and therapeutical follow-up of systemic sclerosis patients, as reported in recent studies. Nailfold videocapillaroscopy is the validated technique for the study of scleroderma microangiopathy as it is able to detect peripheral microvascular morphology and both classify and score the capillary abnormalities into different microangiopathy patterns ('Early', 'Active' and 'Late'). Indeed, the possibility to early diagnose and follow the microvascular changes and the safety of the technique have made nailfold videocapillaroscopy a mandatory tool for patient evaluation and included its assessment in the new systemic sclerosis classification criteria. Important links between nailfold videocapillaroscopy patterns and systemic sclerosis clinical manifestations have been described.

Keywords: Systemic sclerosis; connective tissue diseases; diagnostic tools; microangiopathy; nailfold videocapillaroscopy; scleroderma patterns.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Nailfold videocapillaroscopy images (×200) in (a) a healthy subject, (b) ‘Early’, (c) ‘Active’ and (d) ‘Late’ patterns of scleroderma microangiopathy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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