Further evaluation of available techniques to establish compromises to save time, without sacrificing data quality ensued. The use of techniques to monitor the microcirculation is a recent development in investigative medicine, and has grown almost exponentially over the last 75 years. In detailed mechanistic studies, methods that can distinguish between changes in structure, function, endothelium dependent or independent function, and deep vs. superficial vascular beds have been developed, each with its own advantages and limitations

[12,14]. These techniques give highly reproducible and specific results; however, they are usually time-consuming, making click here them impractical for large studies. The ideal measure

of microcirculation should be able to noninvasively give continuous reproducible measurements, independent of tissue characteristics, and provide a result in a relatively short timescale. Furthermore, if they are to transfer to clinical practice, techniques must provide readily comprehensible results with minimal intervention. The application of laser Doppler fluximetry to the skin meets these criteria, and is used progressively more in the clinical fields of dermatology and microvascular surgery in addition to being utilized increasingly in numerous research studies. As the skin is a thermoregulatory selleck inhibitor organ and can exhibit large fluctuations depending on environmental conditions, vascular function is normally assessed following the application of noninvasive fixed stimuli. The two stimuli most often used are heating to 42° (generating a maximal physiological hyperemia) and response to arterial occlusion (Post Occlusive Reactive Hyperemia). Maximum hyperemic response can be used as an indicator of the cutaneous microvessel capacity for vasodilatation in the face of injury, as microvascular vasodilatation in response to injury is an important part of

healing [49]. This technique uses a temperature-dependent sustained increase in skin blood flow CYTH4 to achieve maximum hyperemia. PORH is the sudden rise in skin blood flow above baseline or resting flux levels after the release of an arterial occlusion [32]. This increase in flow has been associated with vasodilatation due to vasoactive metabolites release, myogenic autoregulation, endothelial response, all resulting from the preceding ischemia and also the subsequent flow-mediated vasodilatation, which is as a result of increased shear stress on the endothelium [13]. Reactive hyperemia is therefore commonly used as a model for microvascular reactivity function, to indicate either reduction in vasodilator bioavailability or an enhanced vasoconstriction in response to tissue hypoxia [77]. The interrogation of the microvasculature with changing shear stress would enable the states of vasodilatory dysfunction to be elucidated [19].