Welcome!
To use the personalized features of this site, please log in or register.
If you have forgotten your username or password, we can help.
My Menu
Saved Items

Original Article

Ulnar artery vasculopathy in systemic sclerosis

Jeong Ha Park1, Yoon-Kyoung Sung1, Sang-Cheol Bae1, Soon-Young Song1, 2, Heong Seok Seo1, 2 and Jae-Bum Jun1, 3 Contact Information

(1)  Department of Rheumatology, The Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
(2)  Department of Radiology, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
(3)  The Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Hanyang University Medical Center, 17 Haengdang-Dong, Seongdong-Gu, Seoul, 133-792, South Korea

Received: 2 July 2008  Accepted: 25 March 2009  Published online: 12 April 2009

Abstract  Although digital ulceration frequently occurs in patients with systemic sclerosis, there have been few reports on macrovascular involvement. Macrovascular disease in systemic sclerosis has recently been described. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records and brachial angiographic findings of 19 systemic sclerosis patients, who exhibited Raynaud’s phenomenon and digital ulceration. We found that ulnar artery involvement is frequent in systemic sclerosis, although the precise mechanism is not known. There was no significant difference in risk factors of macrovascular disease between ulnar artery-involved patients and not-involved subjects. Thirteen patients underwent surgical intervention; five of the 13 patients had vascular graft performed due to ulnar artery involvement. We suggest that angiographic screening and early surgical intervention such as revascularization should be considered in patients with systemic sclerosis who manifest a severe form of Raynaud’s phenomenon and/or digital ulceration and especially in patients with diffuse sclerosis.

Keywords  Systemic sclerosis - Raynaud’s phenomenon - Arteriography - Ulnar artery


Contact Information Jae-Bum Jun
Email: junjb@hanyang.ac.kr
Fulltext Preview (Small, Large)
Image of the first page of the fulltext

References secured to subscribers.



Export this article
Export this article as RIS | Text
 
Remote Address: 38.107.191.114 • Server: mpweb15
HTTP User Agent: CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)