Harish Eswaran, MD and Stephan Moll, MD co-authored a publication in Blood Advances titled Evaluating complement dysregulation in livedoid vasculopathy using a functional assay.
Livedoid vasculopathy (LV) is a chronic skin condition characterized by severely painful ulcers that come and go on the legs and feet. LV is caused by thrombosis in the small blood vessels of the skin, but the mechanism by which microthrombi form is unknown. The histologic similarities between LV and thrombotic microangiopathies raised the question of whether thrombosis in LV could be complement-mediated. In this study, we assessed complement activity in the sera of 16 patients with LV using the modified Ham assay developed by collaborators at Johns Hopkins University. Systemic complement dysregulation was found in only a single patient with LV and concurrent antiphospholipid syndrome. The possibility that complement dysregulation might occur on a local rather than systemic level, or be involved in the pathogenesis of LV only in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome, merit further study.