Nailfold videocapillaroscopy in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Nailfold videocapillaroscopy was performed in 21 controls (C) and 21 patients (P) with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) classified according to the American College of Rheumatology, with, at least, 1 year of diagnosed disease and having low activity (MEX-SLEDAI) and sequel (SLICC) indexes at the time of the examination, paired by sex and age. Red blood cell velocity (RBCV, mm/s) at rest and after the release of 60s arterial occlusion (RBCVmax, mm/s), time to reach it (TRBCVmax, s), functional capillary density (FCD, number of capillaries /mm2), afferent, apical and efferent capillary diameters (microm) (DAF, DAP and DEF, respectively) were obtained from videotapes analyzed by the CapImage software. The results did not show any significant difference between the groups that were analyzed, suggesting that morphological (capillary diameters) and functional (RBCV, RBCVmax, TRBCVmax and FCD) parameters are not affected by SLE when low activity and sequel indexes of the disease are present.