<title>Tissue blood flow mapping using laser technology</title>

Abstract

By the introduction of the laser Doppler perfusion imager (LDPI) the microvascular blood flow in a tissue area can be mapped by sequentially moving a laser beam over the tissue. The measurement is performed without touching the tissue and the captured perfusion values in the peripheral circulation are presented as a color-coded image. In the ordinary LDPI-set-up, 64 X 64 measurement sites cover an area in the range of about 10 - 150 cm² depending on system settings. With a high resolution modification, recordings can be done on tissue areas as small as 1 cm². This high resolution option has been assessed in animal models for the mapping of small vessels. To be able to record not only spatial but also temporal perfusion components of tissue blood flow, different local area scans (LAS) have been developed. These include single point recording as well as integration of either 2 X 2, 3 X 3, or 4 X 4 measurement sites. The laser beam is repeatedly moved in a quadratic pattern over the small tissue area of interest and the output value constitutes the average perfusion of all captured values within the actual region. For the evaluation, recordings were performed on healthy volunteers before and after application of a vasodilatating cream on the dorsal side of the hand.