Use of mobile phones to diagnose and assess Raynaud’s Phenomenon.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Mobile phone technology in the diagnosis and assessment of Raynaud’s phenomenon
IRAS ID
151317
Contact name
Graham Dinsdale
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Salford Royal Hospital
Research summary
Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) is a significant health issue, and is common (up to 21% of women and 16% of men are affected). RP causes finger colour changes (white/blue/red) and pain on exposure to cold. RP can be primary (unknown cause) or secondary to an underlying disease such as systemic sclerosis (SSc, also known as scleroderma) and can have a significant impact on quality of life. RP secondary to SSc is less common, but can be extremely severe leading to ulcers and gangrene. Current treatments are far from ideal. One reason for the lack of treatments is that it is difficult to measure RP attacks (and their severity), and it is therefore difficult to prove whether new proposed treatments are effective.
Currently, the diagnosis of RP is subjective and reliant on patients self-reporting colour changes in their fingers and/or toes. In the research environment, severity is assessed using paper diaries in which patients record their symptoms on a daily basis, but these diaries are often unreliable.
Our aim is to exploit advances in mobile phone technology to diagnose and measure attacks of RP. ‘Capturing’ RP attacks using cameras on mobile phones when outside the clinical environment might not only accurately diagnose RP and assess severity, but also encourage drug development by potentially providing a reliable measure of outcome in clinical trials of new therapies.
SSc is a multisystem connective tissue disease, characterised by thickened skin caused by underlying microvascular abnormalities and fibrosis. The most characteristic clinical expression of this vascular dysfunction is severe RP, experienced by over 90% of patients. For this reason patients with PR secondary to SSc will be asked to image their Raynaud's attacks over a two week period for the purpose of this study
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/1043
Date of REC Opinion
24 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion