ALTERED SKIN MICROCIRCULATION IN PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC LUPUS-ERYTHEMATOSUS

Although microvasculitis is one of the more common manifestations of s ystemic lupus erythematosus, there is no data on the hemodynamics of t he skin microcirculation in such patients. The combination of dynamic capillaroscopy measuring capillary blood cell velocity (CBV) and laser Doppler fluxmetry (LDF) was used to simultaneously evaluate the nutri tional and the total skin microcirculation in the fingers of 24 consec utive patients with SLE, using normal matched subjects as controls. Th e nutritional skin flow, as assessed by the CBV, was significantly imp aired in patients, as compared with controls, both at rest (p = 0.001) and during postocclusive reactive hyperemia (p = 0.006). By contrast, no differences were observed in total skin microcirculation, as asses sed by LDF (n.s.). There was no significant correlation between hemody namic parameters and the presence of Raynaud's phenomenon, morphologic al capillary changes or anticardiolipine antibodies. There was no corr elation between the magnitude of the alteration of the capillary blood flow and capillary morphological abnormalities, suggesting that the m icrovascular damage might be caused by different pathophysiological me chanisms.