Ultrasound assessment of skin thickness and stiffness: the correlation with histology and clinical score in systemic scl
- PDF / 1,189,293 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 14 Downloads / 150 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Ultrasound assessment of skin thickness and stiffness: the correlation with histology and clinical score in systemic sclerosis Chen Chen1,2† , Yi Cheng3†, Xiaoxia Zhu1,2, Yehua Cai3, Yu Xue1,2, Ning Kong1,2, Yiyun Yu1,2, Dandan Xuan1,2, Shucong Zheng1,2, Xue Yang1,2, Zaihua Zhu1,2, Tianyi Zhao1,2, Weiguo Wan1,2*, Hejian Zou1,2* and Minrui Liang1,2*
Abstracts Background: Ultrasound is a useful tool to evaluate and quantify skin lesions. Few studies have assessed the criterion validity of skin ultrasound in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aims of the study were to investigate skin thickness and stiffness using ultrasound and shear wave elastography (SWE) in SSc and to validate skin ultrasound measurements against histological skin thickness. Methods: A total of 22 patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc), 22 with limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc), and 22 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled. Skin thickness and stiffness were measured by B-mode ultrasound with SWE imaging on the bilateral fingers and hands. Additional ultrasound evaluation was carried out in 13 patients (9 dcSSc and 4 lcSSc) on their dorsal forearms, followed by skin biopsy conducted in the same skin areas. Correlations between ultrasound measurements and histological skin thickness and modified Rodnan skin score (mRSS) were investigated using Spearman’s correlation. Results: Compared with controls, ultrasound-measured skin thickness and skin stiffness were significantly higher in patients with SSc (p < 0.001) and even higher in those with dcSSc. No clear correlation could be established between ultrasound-determined skin thickness and stiffness at the same site. Ultrasound-measured skin thickness correlated well with histological skin thickness (r = 0.6926, p = 0.009). A weaker association was also observed between histological skin thickness and local mRSS (r = 0.5867, p = 0.050). Conclusions: Ultrasound is a reliable tool for quantifying skin involvement in SSc. Ultrasound-measured skin thickness showed good agreement with histological skin thickness. Keywords: Ultrasound, Shear wave elastography, Systemic sclerosis, Histology
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] † Chen Chen and Yi Cheng are co-first authors. 1 Division of Rheumatology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, 12 Wulumuqi Zhong Road, Shanghai 200040, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not includ
Data Loading...
