Ultrasonic Measurement of Skin Thickness in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis

Clinical evaluation of the thickness, texture and fixation of the skin, and the extent of dermal changes is necessary for the estimation of the progression and remission of systemic sclerosis (SSc) (1). Such observations may carry important prognostic information (2, 3). Measuring skin thickness by means of high-frequency ultrasound may represent a useful objective and non-invasive method (4), the results of which seems to correlate with clinical and radiographic evaluations (5, 6). Several ultrasound studies showed clinically involved skin of patients with SSc to be thicker than the skin of normal persons (6 – 9). We have studied 20 Danish Caucasian female outpatients with SSc according to the classification criteria of the American College of Rheumatology (10) and 20 healthy age-matched women by means of ultrasound determination o