Prospective nailfold capillaroscopy evaluation of Raynaud's phenomenon in children and adolescents

To evaluate prospectively the clinical features and nailfold capillaroscopy findings of a cohort of children and adolescents who presented Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) without criteria for autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

40 children and adolescents with isolated RP were included. Evidence of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARD) was ruled out by thorough clinical and laboratory examination. Concomitantly we also performed wide-field nailfold capillaroscopy evaluation using an optical microscope with magnifications of 10 and 16X. All patients were prospectively re-evaluated within a mean interval time between evaluations of 1.6 years.

Thirty (75%) out of 40 patients were female with a mean age of 14.6 years and mean follow-up time of 4.2 years. The mean age of disease onset was 10.4 years and the mean time until diagnosis was 1.4 years. Fourteen out of 40 patients (35%) presented antinuclear antibodies (ANA). Five (12.5%) patients had altered nailfold capillaroscopy at first examination: four presented non-specific microangiopathy and one presented scleroderma pattern. At the re-evaluation three patients (7.5%) presented nailfold capillaroscopy alterations (two SD pattern and one non-specific microangiopathy). The two patients who showed scleroderma pattern at the nailfold capillaroscopy presented along the follow-up a diagnosis of mixed connective tissue disease and hypothyroidism, respectively. One 10 year-old girl with normal nailfold capillaroscopy and presence of autoantibodies (ANA 1/640, nuclear homogeneous pattern, anti-native DNA 1/80) was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus after 1 year of initial evaluation. None of the other children presented diagnosis of SARD along the follow-up.

Primary Raynaud´s phenomenon remained the diagnosis in most cases in this series of children and adolescents presenting with initial RP complaint. Nailfold capillaroscopy and determination of autoantibodies were useful ancillary tools in the investigation of possible evolution towards SARD.