Similarity of fingertip skin blood flow patterns recorded by the model-based thermal clearance and large area laser Doppler probes.

We compared two different techniques for non-invasive registration of fingertip skin blood flow patterns in 15 healthy volunteers during a rest at room temperature 26-28 degrees C. The large area probes of a two-channel laser Doppler flowmeter (LDF) and an experimental probe of a thermal clearance (TC) instrument provided approximately the same sample volume of the studied tissue. The laser Doppler probes were attached to the pulp of the index (LDF1) and ring (LDF2) fingers, while the TC probe to the pulp of the middle finger. A computer simulation method, provided by the MATLAB package, was introduced to speed up the frequency response of the TC probe. By calculating the correlation coefficients and applying the least squares criterion, we evaluated the similarity of the 3-min samples having time resolution of 1 s. The group-averaged value of the correlation coefficient (median with a 99% confidence interval) for LDF2 versus LDF1 equalled 0.95 (0.92-0.97). After an introduction of the computer-based frequency correction, the correlation coefficient for TC versus LDF1 increased from 0.81 (0.61-0.85) till 0.92 (0.84-0.95), while the root mean squared error between TC and LDF1 diminished by 33% (p<0.001).