Dinsdale, Graham

Heal, Calvin

Herrick, Ariane

Manning, Joanne

Vivekanantham, Arani

Digital pitting (loss of tissue at the fingertip), is a cardinal feature of systemic sclerosis (SSc) (1), contributing 3 of the 9 required points to fulfill the 2013 American College of Rheumatology/ European League Against Rheumatism classification criteria (2). Digital pitting is painful and has an impact on hand function, interfering with activities of everyday living (3). We recently reported that patients with digital pitting are more likely to have ‘grossly abnormal’ capillaries on nailfold capillaroscopy than those without pitting, supporting an association between digital pitting and severity of digital vascular change (3). However, research into digital pitting has been scarce. For example, information has been lacking on whether digital pitting is associated with specific patient demographics, autoantibodies, or other SSc-related digital vascular complications, although a very recent analysis of the EUSTAR database (4) has addressed this issue. Our aim was to identify factors associated with digital pitting in patients with SSc in a retrospective cohort study. Data were extracted from a clinical database of patients with SSc attending a single tertiary referral centre between November 1994 and September 2019. Patients were sub-divided into those with and without digital pitting, as recorded at their last documented attendance. Data were collected at their first visit, or for patients attending before November 1994 at their first visit after that date, and updated if appropriate at subsequent visits. Data on the following variables were collected: age, gender, age at Raynaud’s phenomenon onset, age at SSc onset (defined using date of first non-Raynaud's clinical manifestation), limited/ diffuse cutaneous subtype, history of admission for intravenous (IV) vasodilators, history of amputations, history of surgical debridements, presence or absence of clinically apparent calcinosis, and autoantibody status (anticentromere, anti-Scl70 (anti-topoisomerase), anti-RNA polymerase and anti-RNP). <br/

ASSOCIATIONS WITH DIGITAL PITTING IN PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC SCLEROSIS: RESULTS OF A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

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