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Decreased digital skin microvascular blood flow before and after cold stimulus using Laser Doppler imaging in juvenile systemic sclerosis
Pediatric Rheumatology volume 9, Article number: P76 (2011)
Background
Laser Doppler imaging (LDI) is a new method for assessing the functional superficial skin blood flow in systemic sclerosis and Raynaud's phenomenon.
Aim
To evaluate the dynamic behavior of fingertip microvascular blood flow before and after cold stimulus, using LDI in children and adolescents with Raynaud's phenomenon secondary to juvenile systemic sclerosis (JSS), primary Raynaud's phenomenon and healthy controls, and to compare it with structural microvascular abnormalities evaluated by nailfold capillaroscopy.
Methods
We included 5 patients with JSS, 5 children and adolescents with primary Raynaud's phenomenon and 5 healthy controls matched for gender and age. All subjects were submitted to nailfold capillaroscopy. The fingertip blood flow (FBF) from the 4 fingertips of left hand was measured using the LDI at baseline, at 1, 4, 10, 25 and 40 minutes after cold stimulus.
Results
Mean baseline FBF was significantly lower in JSS patients when compared to controls (204.5 ± 210.1 vs 649.6 ± 92.5 PU, p <0.002). There was also a trend towards lower mean baseline FBF in patients with JSS compared to patients with primary Raynaud's phenomenon. We observed a sharp drop in average FBF 1 minute after the cold stimulus in all groups. The mean FBF remained significantly lower in JSS patients when compared to the other groups in all measurements. Moreover, a blood flow recovery in the follow-up was not observed 27 minutes after cold stimulus in JSS patients. All JSS patients presented scleroderma pattern in nailfold capillaroscopy with fewer number of capillaries, higher number of enlarged capillaries and deletion score compared with the other two groups (p=0.009, p=0.025, p=0.001, respectively).
Conclusion
In JSS patients LDI showed a lower superficial blood flow in the fingertips before and after cold stimulus compared to healthy controls and patients with Raynaud's phenomenon. Quantification of blood flow by LDI can be useful for disease follow-up and for monitoring therapeutic interventions in JSS patients.
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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Cite this article
RATerreri, M.T., Petry Piotto, D.G., Uchôa Corrêa, M.J. et al. Decreased digital skin microvascular blood flow before and after cold stimulus using Laser Doppler imaging in juvenile systemic sclerosis. Pediatr Rheumatol 9 (Suppl 1), P76 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1546-0096-9-S1-P76
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1546-0096-9-S1-P76
Keywords
- Scleroderma
- Skin Blood Flow
- Microvascular Blood Flow
- Cold Stimulus
- Superficial Skin