THE ABNORMALITIES OF NAILFOLD CAPILLARIES IN SCLERODERMA AS ASSESSED BY VIDEO IMAGE-ANALYSIS AND PHOTOMICROSCOPY

Scleroderma is a systemic connective tissue disease in which the diagn osis in supported by morphological changes in nailfold capillary size and density. These changes are open to observer bias. In this paper we describe 2 objective methods that allow quantitative definition of ca pillary changes, video image analysis (VIA) and photomicroscopy. VIA w as used to assess 15 healthy control subjects and 22 patients with scl eroderma. Scleroderma patients had a significantly larger capillary di ameter (43 mu m versus 20 mu m, p=0.0001) and capillary density was re duced by a mean factor of 0.5. Image stored on computer will facilitat e serial assessments of nailfold capillary changes and possibly provid e information on disease progression.