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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Non-invasive Assessment of Microvascular and Endothelial Function
Published on: January 29, 2013
New finger-occlusion plethysmograph for estimating peripheral blood flow and vascular resistance
Naoki Kura1, Tetsuya Fujikawa, Osamu Tochikubo
1Department of Preventive Medicine, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan. nkura@yokohama-cu.ac.jp
Background:
The aim of the present study was to measure peripheral blood flow (BF) with a new finger-occlusion plethysmograph (FOP) and to compare this to BF measured with a laser Doppler flowmeter (LDF). An additional objective was to investigate the relationship between hypertension-related clinical parameters and peripheral vascular resistance (PVR) estimated from BF and mean blood pressure (BP) (PVR=mean BP/BF) in young subjects.
Methods And Results:
The present study employed 101 young volunteers (61 males, 40 females, mean age 23.2+/-2.5 years). The FOP was attached to the third finger and an LDF to the fourth fingertip of each subject. BF was measured simultaneously by the 2 devices. A multi-biomedical recorder (TM2425) measured 24-h BP. A high correlation was observed between BF measured by the FOP and LDF (r=0.79, p<0.001). In multiple linear regression analysis, PVR was independently correlated with a family history of hypertension (p<0.01) and with base diastolic BP during sleep (p<0.01), which is a sensitive predictor of severity of hypertension.
Conclusions:
Our newly developed FOP can estimate peripheral absolute BF easily. Furthermore, BF determined by the FOP can be used to calculate PVR, and an elevated PVR may be a useful predictor of hypertension.
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