Capillary microscopy is a potential screening method for connective tissue disease in children with Raynaud’s phenomenon

Table 1 Baseline characteristics for the whole study population, and the PRP group and SRP group separately

Characteristics	All patients n = 83	PRP-patients n = 65	SRP-patients n = 18	P-value
Demographics
Age at NCM, mean ± sd	15.4 ± 2.26	15.7 ± 1.81	14.3 ± 3.26	0.10
Female gender, n (%)	64 (77.1)	49 (75.4)	15 (83.3)	0.48
NCM
Capillary loss (< 6/mm), n (%)^a	18 (22.0)	10 (15.6)	8 (44.4)	0.01
Dilated capillaries (> 3/3 mm), n (%)	40 (48.2)	32 (49.2)	8 (44.4)	0.72
Giant capillaries (> 0/3 mm), n (%)	21 (25.3)	15 (23.1)	6 (33.3)	0.38
Haemorrhages (> 0/3 mm), n (%)	14 (16.9)	10 (15.4)	4 (22.2)	0.49
Number of capillaries/mm, mean ± sd^a	6.9 ± 0.96	7.0 ± 0.8	6.4 ± 1.3	0.06
Number of dilated capillaries/3 mm, mean ± sd	4.1 ± 4.36	4.3 ± 4.27	3.8 ± 4.8	0.43
Number of giant capillaries/3 mm, mean ± sd	0.3 ± 0.93	0.2 ± 0.70	0.5 ± 1.42	0.39
Number of haemorrhages/3 mm, mean ± sd	0.2 ± 0.67	0.2 ± 0.65	0.3 ± 0.73	0.42
Serology
Positive ANA screening, n (%)^a	21 (25.6)	9 (14.1)	12 (66.7)	< 0.001
Positive anti-ENA screening, n (%)^b	12 (14.8)	3 (4.8)	9 (50.0)	< 0.001

The last column shows p-value (in bold: p < 0.10) for comparison between PRP and SRP
Abbreviations: ANA Antinuclear Antibodies, ENA Extractable Nuclear Antigens, NCM Nailfold Capillary Microscopy, PRP Primary Raynaud’s Phenomenon, SRP Secondary Raynaud’s Phenomenon, SSc Systemic Sclerosis
^a1 missing value (1.5%). ^b2 missing values (2.4%)

ISSN: 1546-0096