Back groud and aims: Nailfold capillaroscopy is usefull for determine the state of peripheral microvessels in various disease, especially rheumatic disease. While capillary loss is well known in essential hypertension as findings of the cardiovascular disease, clinical significance of horizontal capillaries is not well known. We have examined the relationship between serum concentration of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and horizontal vessels in nailfold capillary microscopy.

Method: The study examined 78 patients 60 years of age or older. Serum BNP concentration was measured for all cases, and we examined the statistical significant difference of the cases with and without findings of transverse blood vessels by the nailfold capillary microscopy.

Result: Serum BNP concentration increased in many cases with a horizontal vessels and significant difference was observed statistically. BNP concentration was enough to slightly more than normal values.

Discussion: Using the nailfold capillary microscopy, deformation of the vessel in the vertical direction is most notable. On the other hand, the meaning of the transverse blood vessels has received less attention. Evaluated the observation of blood flow of many finger tips, it was considered that the blood flow in the horizontal direction is venous blood flow. We estimated that horizontal blood flow means the decrease of venous return, namely expresses the early state of congestion of the right ventricle of the heart. Since the BNP rise and this finding had a significant difference statistically, we considered nailfold microcapillary findings can reveal early stage of congestion of right ventricle of the heart.