engleski

Reproducibility of post-occlusion reactive hyperaemia assessed by laser Doppler flowmetry in young healthy women

The aim of this study was to evaluate the day-to- day and inter-subject reproducibility of post occlusive reactive hyperaemia (PORH) measured by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) in young healthy female subjects. In addition, we looked for most reproducible form of data presentation. 10 healthy female subjects were tested 4 times during 2 weeks. Blood flow was measured during baseline, vascular occlusion (1, 2 and 3 min) and PORH. Parameters studied were: increase in flow during vascular reperfusion (R), difference between % of flow change during reperfusion and occlusion (delta R-O) in relation to baseline, time-to-peak (TtP) and latency time of the flow to go back to baseline levels (LT). Coefficient of variation (CV ; with 95% confidence interval) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC ; with 95% confidence interval) were calculated for each parameter. CVs of ≤10%, 10–25% and ≥25% were considered good, moderate and poor reproducibility. An ICC value of <0.40, 0.40–0.75 and >0.75 considered as poor, fair-to-good and excellent reproducibility. None of the parameters showed significant differences across the measurements. Obtained CVs for all parameters have shown moderate reproducibility (10-25%), except CV for TtP which was >25%. R-O was the most reproducible parameter of reactive hyperemia, indicated by the lowest CV and highest ICC (0.60), which is considered fair- to-good reproducibility. The results of this study suggest that parameter R-O is fair-to-good reproducible for LDF assessment of PORH in young healthy women and it can be a useful and reliable noninvasive clinical measurement index of microvascular function.

laser Doppler flowmetry; microcirculation; endothelium

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