Is nailfold capillaroscopy useful for prognostication and evaluation of disease progression in MCTD/myositis patients?

Great question for clinicians: Nailfold capillaroscopy is useful for several systemic autoimmune diseases and, not surprisingly, multiple studies have documented frequent nailfold capillary abnormalities in patients with multiple types of autoimmune myositis, including dermatomyositis (DM), anti-synthetase syndrome (ASS), necrotizing autoimmune myopathy (NAM, a.k.a. immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy), and "overlap" myositis.

In our myositis clinic, I routinely use bedside nailfold capillaroscopy to help me in the diagnosis of autoimmune myositis. I find this especially helpful for patients that (1) may have clinically amyotrophic dermatomyositis, especially those who present without classic DM rashes (or who have non-specific or partially...