Introduction: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune
disease characterized by vasculopathy and excessive production
of collagen, which lead to skin and visceral fibrosis. The aim of our
study is to assess the potential benefits of autologous peripheral
blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) implants in the treatment of clinical
manifestations such as mouth impairment, hand disability, digital ulcers
and Raynaud’s phenomenon in Scleroderma patients.
Methods: From February 2016 to May 2019, 10 female patients
were enrolled from the outpatient clinic of the Plastic Surgery Unit of
Sapienza University of Rome. Parameters evaluated were: patients’
disability, using the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) disability
index (DI) and the scleroderma HAQ (sHAQ); mouth opening capacity, by
measuring the maximum interincisal distance and the mouth perimeter;
hand mobility, assessed with clinical exam and the Hand Mobility in
Scleroderma (HAMIS) scale; Raynaud’s phenomenon, evaluated through
nailfold capillaroscopy; digital ulcers, examined through their features
and incidence of appearance. SPSS software was used for a simple
descriptive statistical analysis performed by the Student’s paired t-test.
P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: The treatment showed a significant improvement of all
the parameters evaluated at 1-year follow-up, it was well-tolerated by
all the patients and the only complications noticed were small areas of
ecchymosis.
Conclusions: With our preliminary study we tought to exploit PBMCs
capability to induce angiogenesis widely described in literature in order
to treat the vasculopathy-related manifestations of SSc, in patients with
no chance for lipofilling. Our results suggest that PBMCs injection could
represent a treatment option to take into account for SSc patients. The
procedure we used is easy and fast to perform, minimally invasive and
not-operator dependent. We hope our observational and preliminary
study could be considered as a starting point for further research studies
