Introduction:

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by fibrosis, inflammation, and microcirculatory alterations.

Objective:

To evaluate abnormalities in the sublingual microcirculation of SSc patients and to establish any differences compared to healthy controls.

Methods:

The sublingual microcirculation was determined using a Sidestream dark-field (SDF) imaging device (MicroScan; MicroVision Medical, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) in patients with SSc and controls.

Results:

Twelve patients with SSc (75% with diffuse cutaneous SSc) were evaluated (mean age: 52.08 ± 2.08 years). A group of 20 volunteers was used as the control. Significantly lower total capillary density (TCD) (9.2 [8.5-9.7] vs. 10.9 [9.8-12.5]) and functional capillary density (FCD) (7.0 [6.8-7.5] vs. 8.6 [7.5-9.8]) were observed in SSc patients than in healthy controls.

Conclusions:

SSc is related to significantly lower capillary density in the sublingual microcirculation, and the SDF imaging technique could be an alternative to nailfold video-capillaroscopy for diagnosing and following-up patients with SSc.

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