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Abstract Number: 1857

Ultra-High Frequency Ultrasound Compared to Durometry and Skin Score for Cutaneous Assessment in Systemic Sclerosis

Marco Di Battista1, Saverio Vitali2, Simone Barsotti3, Alessandra Della Rossa4, Valentina Dini5, Marco Romanelli5 and Marta Mosca3, 1Rheumatology Unit, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 2Radiology Unit - University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 3Rheumatology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 4Rheumatology Unit - University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 5Dermatology Unit - University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Meeting: ACR Convergence 2021

Keywords: , ,

Session Information

Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Title: Systemic Sclerosis & Related Disorders – Clinical Poster III (1836–1861)

Session Type: Poster Session D

Session Time: 8:30AM-10:30AM

Background/Purpose: To assess skin involvement in a cohort of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) comparing results obtained from modified Rodnan skin score (mRSS), durometry and ultra-high frequency ultrasound (UHFUS). Additionally, correlations with clinical characteristics of the disease were analyzed.

Methods: SSc patients were enrolled along with healthy controls (HC), assessing disease-specific characteristics. Five regions of interest were investigated in the non-dominant upper limb: the central dorsal side of the distal, intermediate and proximal phalanx of the second finger, the dorsum of the hand and the volar side of the forearm. Each patient underwent rheumatological evaluation of the mRSS, measurement of skin thickness with durometer, and UHFUS assessment with a 70 MHz probe. Moreover, the mean grayscale value (MGV) of the dermal and epidermal layers in US images was collected.

Results: Forty-seven SSc patients (87% female, mean age 56.4 years, mean disease duration 10.8 years) and 15 HC were enrolled. Durometry showed a good correlation with mRSS (p=0.025, rho=0.34). When performing UHFUS, SSc patients had a significantly thicker epidermal layer (p< 0.001) and lower epidermal MGV (p=0.01) than HC in almost all the different regions of interest. Among the various SSc-characteristics, patients with interstitial lung disease and those with pulmonary arterial hypertension presented a significant lower MGV of both epidermal and dermal layers in several regions of interest. No correlations were found between UHFUS results either with mRSS or durometry.

Conclusion: UHFUS in SSc showed that skin thickness and echogenicity can be related to lung involvement. The lack of correlations between UHFUS and both mRSS and durometry suggests that these are not equivalent techniques, but indeed may represent complementary methods for a full skin evaluation in SSc.

Disclosures: M. Di Battista, None; S. Vitali, None; S. Barsotti, None; A. Della Rossa, None; V. Dini, None; M. Romanelli, None; M. Mosca, None.

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Di Battista M, Vitali S, Barsotti S, Della Rossa A, Dini V, Romanelli M, Mosca M. Ultra-High Frequency Ultrasound Compared to Durometry and Skin Score for Cutaneous Assessment in Systemic Sclerosis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2021; 73 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/ultra-high-frequency-ultrasound-compared-to-durometry-and-skin-score-for-cutaneous-assessment-in-systemic-sclerosis/. Accessed .

ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/ultra-high-frequency-ultrasound-compared-to-durometry-and-skin-score-for-cutaneous-assessment-in-systemic-sclerosis/