The Principles Of Laser Doppler Flowmetry 2 - 1657 Words

Table of Contents Introduction and History 1 The Principles Of Laser Doppler Flowmetry 2 Clinical Applications 4 Recent Developments 4 Glossary 5 Works Cited 6 Introduction and History Laser Doppler flowmetry, or LDF, is a unique way to measure the microcirculatory blood flow without a painful or invasive procedure. LDF uses the Doppler shift theory as a way to transmit the information, with the scattering of light coming from the laser by way of the red blood cells. [A, B, C] Micro-vascular applications have greatly benefited from this type of technology. The accuracy and reproducibility can be shown after years of extensive research. It can continuously monitor the blood flow and between every two to five seconds give an average output value. [E] The blood cell velocity in capillaries is too low to use the technique of the Doppler shift using ultrasound, as the frequencies of the sound that would reverberate back would be too small to identify. [B] Using the laser, calculations based upon the measurements between the primary light source’s frequencies that were transferred towards the vasculature and the reflective light coming back towards the source can determine the blood flow’s velocity. [B] This non-destructive way to assess microcirculatory function has been around for approximately 40 years now in its realised state. The proposed device became experimentally plausible in 1972 when Riva used LDF for measuring retina vessels in rabbits. [D] Around 1980 another