Nailfold capillary morphological characteristics of hand-arm vibration syndrome: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of nailfold capillaroscopy associated with hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS).

Methods: In total, 113 male gold miners were recruited: 35 workers who were chronically exposed to vibration and developed vibration-induced white finger were defined as the HAVS group, 39 workers who were exposed to vibration but did not have HAVS were classified as the vibration-exposed controls (VEC) group, and 39 workers without vibration exposure were categorised as the non-VEC (NVEC) group. Video capillaroscopy was used to capture images of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers of both hands.