Severity of seropositive isolated Raynaud's phenomenon is associated with serological profile

To examine the relationship between the clinical severity of seropositive isolated Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) and its serological background by analyzing digital blood flow data obtained by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF).

We analyzed digital blood flow by LDF in 13 healthy volunteers, 55 patients with seropositive isolated RP, and 13 patients with anti-Scl-70 antibody positive systemic sclerosis (SCL). The serological profiles of patients with RP were as follows: 30 patients had the anti-centromere antibody (C) and 19 the anti-RNP antibody (RNP). We designated the RP in each patient group as C-RP, RNP-RP, and SCL-RP. We used an "arm-raising test" by which blood pressure could be passively depressed, and the cold provocation test, which induced vasoconstriction through the sympathetic reflex. We defined 2 variables, the recovery velocity after cold exposure (RV-CE) and the increase in the amplitude of the digital pulse wave during the arm-raising test (IA-AR), that are the most reliable and sensitive variables indicating the severity of RP.

Both RV-CE and IA-AR correlated significantly with the clinical severity of RP. In IA-AR and RV-CE, there was a significant difference between C-RP and RNP-RP (IA-AR 107.1 +/- 25.63 vs 37.4 +/- 17.25%; RV-CE 0.0667 +/- 0.010 vs 0.035 +/- 0.0096 V/s), showing that C-RP tended to be less severe than RNP-RP.

We defined 2 variables that correlated with the clinical severity of RP; using them we found that anti-centromere antibody positive RP is less severe than RNP-RP