Abstract
Evaluation of skin microcirculation allows for the assessment of functional states for neuroendocrine and endothelial regulation. We present a novel method to visualize skin microvessels in any area of the body, which is in contrast to classical capillaroscopy, in which the application areas are limited to the nailfold and retina capillaries. The technique is based on microscopic video-image analysis. It exploits a specific feature of irregularity of red-blood-cells motion. Feasibility of the method is demonstrated by mapping the skin capillaries in the forearm and face of 11 healthy volunteers. The proposed method is promising for the quantitative assessment of cutaneous microcirculation in a wide range of diseases and functional states.
Highlights
Study of local microcirculation disorders is of high importance for development of early diagnosis methods of different diseases such as scleroderma and other rheumatologic and dermatologic diseases
The light flickering in capillaries depends on the red blood cells (RBCs) speed, which varies among capillaries [5]
To estimate quantitatively how the capillaries are distinguished from the tissue, we calculated the dispersion of the PPG-DW over 50 small regions of interest (ROI) situated at capillaries [representative mean spectrum is shown in Fig. 4(b) by brown curve] and compared it to the dispersion of PPG-DW over 50 small ROIs at the tissue
Summary
Study of local microcirculation disorders is of high importance for development of early diagnosis methods of different diseases such as scleroderma and other rheumatologic and dermatologic diseases. The timely diagnosis of neoplastic skin processes is important. From the point of view of medical diagnostics, it would be much more informative to measure and analyze the state and morphology of capillaries in proximal locations, i.e. closer to the heart [10] or at the site of skin lesions. No successful visualization of skin capillaries situated in sites other than fingernails has been reported. Observations of the capillary bed in proximal locations is significantly challenging task because of thick epidermis, hairs, wrinkles, nevi, and problems in focusing of microscopic images
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