The following tests are done to confirm the diagnosis and tell you the type of scleroderma you have, and what parts of your body and to what degree your body is involved by your scleroderma.
- Tests help you and your doctor learn what to expect and what to do about your disease. you will need other tests at regular clinic visits.
- Tests help you and your physician monitor your disease activity, talk about how the treatment is working and keep you safe.
Autoimmune tests:
Antinuclear antibody tests (ANA):
Will tell whether the immune system is overactive or not. The ANA is not specific for scleroderma, although it is present in 90% of patients who have scleroderma.
Scleroderma specific autoantibodies:
Tests in the blood have many names, including SCL 70, anticentromere, RNA P3 and others. These test help tell you and your doctor what can be expected.
Routine clinical tests:
These are blood tests to examine for anemia, protective cells, liver, kidney, etc. both for safety and disease activity.
Nail fold Capillaroscopy:
This is a painless, simple examination using a magnifying glass/microscope to examine the smallest blood vessels at the base of your fingernails. It helps understand what to expect.
Skin biopsy:
This is a small biopsy (usually less than a pencil diameter in size) to examine the type of disease you may have and the disease activity of your skin, as well as to help understand the cause(s) of scleroderma in ongoing studies.
Modified Rodnan Skin Score:
This tests the thickness of your skin by having your doctor palpate in 17 areas. It is then added up and can often tell how you are doing. Ultrasound is also sometimes used to measure the skin.
Pulmonary (lung) function tests:
These are breathing tests to examine your lung function
6-minute walking test:
This is a test of walking for 6 minutes to see how far you can walk and examines the oxygen in your blood using a painless technique called oximetry. It also asks about how breathless you became when walking.
High-resolution CT scan (HRCT) of the lungs:
A fancy form of imaging like x-rays that gives a detailed picture of the anatomy of the lungs. By today’s techniques it takes slightly more radiation than a chest x-ray and is much preferred.
Echocardiogram:
This test bounces sound waves of your heart (like sonar) to give a picture of the anatomy and function of heart.
Right heart catheterization:
In this test a very small flexible tube (the size of the ballpoint refill) is passed through your vessels and heart into the blood vessels of the lung. It is outpatient procedure taking about an hour and tells about how the heart is functioning, and whether there is pulmonary hypertension.
Upper G.I. endoscopy:
Under anesthesia, a flexible tube is passed down your throat and esophagus to look at your esophagus and stomach.
Colonoscopy:
Under anesthesia, a flexible a tube is passed into your lower G.I. tract (colon) to examine the rectum and colon.
24-hour esophageal pH test
An outpatient test to examine the acidity of your esophagus and stomach. It requires wearing a nasogastric tube.
Motility testing:
Various tests using either very small amount of radiation or radio waves (like sonar) to measure how your G.I. tract moves and works.
Hydrogen and methane breath tests:
An outpatient test where you take some radio labeled food and see how much of the radio label you breathe out. It is to test for overgrowth of bacteria and usually takes 2 to 4 hours.