Nailfold Microvascular Imaging by Dynamic Optical Coherence Tomography in Systemic Sclerosis: A Case-Controlled Pilot...

Area of Science:

• Vascular Biology
• Medical Imaging
• Rheumatology

Background:

• Systemic sclerosis requires reliable outcome measures for skin microvasculopathy in clinical research and patient care.
• Nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC) is the current gold standard for assessing microvascular changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate dynamic-optical coherence tomography (D-OCT) for assessing microvasculopathy in systemic sclerosis.
• To compare D-OCT findings with NVC in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Main Methods:

• A case-controlled study involving 40 systemic sclerosis patients and 10 healthy controls.
• Participants underwent both NVC and D-OCT imaging.
• D-OCT images were correlated with NVC patterns and quantitative scores.

Main Results:

• D-OCT successfully visualized microvascular patterns corresponding to NVC.
• D-OCT microvascular flow density differed significantly across NVC-defined groups (P=0.0114).
• Microvascular flow density showed strong correlations with NVC semiquantitative scores (r=-0.7, P<0.0001).

Conclusions:

• D-OCT provides both qualitative and quantitative data on nailfold microvasculopathy in systemic sclerosis.
• D-OCT demonstrates excellent reliability (ICC > 0.9).
• Standardized D-OCT could serve as a valuable quantitative outcome measure in systemic sclerosis clinical trials and practice.