Application of Digital Video-Capillaroscopy in Clinical Practice and Teaching

Abstract

The Capillaroscopy allows the study of the periungual microcirculation, being a fundamental test for the evaluation of patients with Raynaud’s phenomenon, useful in the diagnostic process of scleroderma and other rheumatic diseases. It can be performed with different optical devices, the most used being the stereomicroscope. In recent years, the digital video-capillaroscope has been developed, which is the result of incorporating the appropriate hardware and software for digitizing images into the optical microscope and is used in the field of research. This paper aims to assess the advantages of video-capillaroscopy compared to previous techniques, thus defending its incorporation into routine clinical practice and its application in the field of teaching. The high quality, and the possibility of computer processing, of the images obtained by Videocapillaroscopy optimises and facilitates the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with scleroderma, providing advantages such as the possibility of automatically counting the capillary density in the periungual bed and measuring its size. The ease and immediacy of making them and the availability of images in computer files facilitates the development of teaching materials such as slide presentations, videos or learning applications.