title: [Platelet count and clinical profile of anticardiolipin positive leg ulcers].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the prevalence of anticardiolipin antibodies in patients with venous, diabetic and arterial leg ulcers and to verify if platelet count, previous history of venous thrombosis, obstetrical history and the finding of livedo reticularis are markers of this autoantibody positivity.
  
  
  METHODS
  151 patients with leg ulcer (81 with venous, 50 with diabetic and 20 with arterial ulcers) and 150 controls were included. In both groups search for the presence of IgG and IgM anticardiolipin and platelet count was done. In the leg ulcer group demographic data, obstetrical history, previous history of venous thrombosis as well as presence of livedo reticularis by physical examination were pointed out. Data was grouped in contingency and frequency tables and the tests of Fisher and chi-squared were used for nominal variables and Mann Whitney and Kruskall Wallis for numerical variables. The adopted significance was of 5%.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It was found an anticardiolipin prevalence of 7.2% (n=12) in the leg ulcer group and of 1.3% (n=2) in the control group (p=0.01). Leg ulcer patients with anticardiolipin did not differ from those without it in gender (p=0.98), previous history of venous thrombosis (p=0.69), previous history of abortions (p=0.67) and platelet count (p=0.67). Only two patients had livedo reticularis which precluded any conclusion on this data.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is an increased prevalence of anticardiolipin antibodies in the general population with leg ulcers. Clinical characteristics of ulcers as well as platelet count do not help in the identification of these patients.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Princípios da Cirurgia do Hospital Universitário Evangélico de Curitiba/Faculdade Evangélica do Paraná, Curitiba, PR - BR. tskare@onda.com.br
authors.forename: Thelma Laroka
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Skare
authors.forename: Carmen Autralia Paredes Marcondes
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Ribas
authors.forename: Osvaldo
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Malafaia
authors.forename: Jurandir Marcondes
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ribas Filho
authors.forename: Paulo Afonso Nunes
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Nassif
authors.forename: Marcelo Mazza do
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Nascimento
authors.forename: Jan Pawel Andrade
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Pachnicki
mesh_terms: D017153:Antibodies, Anticardiolipin / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007871:Leg Ulcer / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010976:Platelet Count
chemical_list: D017153:Antibodies, Anticardiolipin