[Platelet count and clinical profile of anticardiolipin positive leg ulcers].
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.
Skare
Thelma Laroka
TL
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
Ribas
Carmen Autralia Paredes Marcondes
CA
Malafaia
Osvaldo
O
Ribas Filho
Jurandir Marcondes
JM
Nassif
Paulo Afonso Nunes
PA
Nascimento
Marcelo Mazza do
MM
Pachnicki
Jan Pawel Andrade
JP
D017153:Antibodies, Anticardiolipin / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007871:Leg Ulcer / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010976:Platelet Count
D017153:Antibodies, Anticardiolipin