CAPoxy: a feasibility study to investigate multispectral imaging in nailfold capillaroscopy - data set

Imaging of the nailfold capillaries offers tissue-specific oxygenation information, unlike pulse oximetry, which measures arterial blood oxygenation as a single-point measurement.

Methods

The CAPoxy study was a single-centre, cross-sectional, feasibility study of nailfold capillary multispectral imaging, comparing a cohort of patients with SSc to controls. A nine-band multispectral camera was used to image 22 individuals (10 patients with SSc and 12 controls). Linear mixed-effects models and summary statistics were used to compare the different regions of the nailfold (capillaries, surrounding edges, and outside area) between SSc and controls.

A machine learning model was used to compare the two groups. Results: Patients with SSc exhibited higher indicators of haemoglobin concentration in the capillary and adjacent regions compared to controls, which were significant in the regions surrounding the capillaries (p<0.001). There were also spectral differences between the SSc and controls groups that could indicate differences in oxygenation of the capillaries and surrounding tissue.

Additionally, an exploratory machine learning model distinguished SSc patients from healthy controls with 84% accuracy; these findings serve as a proof-of-concept for future studies. Conclusions: Data indicates that multispectral imaging differentiates between patients with SSc from controls based on differences in vascular function. Further work to develop a targeted spectral camera would further improve the contrast between patients with SSc and controls, enabling better imaging.</p>