Progression of Organ Involvement in Systemic Sclerosis Patients with Persistent "Late" Nailfold Capillaroscopic Pattern of Microangiopathy: A Prospective Study.

Abstract

To the Editor: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex systemic connective tissue disease characterized by vasculopathy and progressive fibrosis of skin and internal organs. Peripheral microangiopathy is a dynamic event characterized by progressive capillary loss. Its advanced stage is depicted by the “late” nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC) pattern of microvascular damage1. It has been reported that the decreased number of capillaries is associated with clinical subsets and the severity of SSc clinical complications2,3,4,5. We performed a study to assess, to our knowledge for the first time, possible correlations between absolute nailfold capillary number (CN) and organ involvement, in a cohort of SSc patients with the “Late” NVC pattern of microangiopathy diagnosed at baseline and during a followup of 5 years. Twenty-three patients (22 women, mean age 64.30 ± 12.38 SD yrs, mean disease duration 7.74 ± 7.61 yrs, mean Raynaud phenomenon duration 17.87 ± 15.35 yrs) affected by SSc according to the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism criteria and displaying the “Late” NVC pattern at baseline were recruited and followed for 5 years … Address correspondence to Dr. M. Cutolo, Research Laboratory and Academic Division of Clinical Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa, Viale Benedetto XV, no. 6, 16132 Genoa, Italy. E-mail: mcutolo{at}unige.it