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Updated: Jun 1, 2026
Laser Doppler: A Tool for Measuring Pancreatic Islet Microvascular Vasomotion In Vivo
Published on: March 8, 2018
Repeatability of the evaluation of systemic microvascular endothelial function using laser doppler perfusion
Eduardo Tibiriçá1, Alessandra S M Matheus, Bruno Nunes
1Diabetes Unit, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. etibi@ioc.fiocruz.br
Objective:
An awareness of the repeatability of biological measures is required to properly design and calculate sample sizes for longitudinal interventional studies. We investigated the day-to-day repeatability of measures of systemic microvascular reactivity using laser Doppler perfusion monitoring.
Methods:
We performed laser Doppler perfusion monitoring in combination with skin iontophoresis using acetylcholine and sodium nitroprusside as well as post-occlusive reactive and thermal hyperemia twice within two weeks. The repeatability was assessed by calculating the within-subject standard deviations, limits of agreement, typical errors and intra-class correlation coefficients between days 1 and 2. The ratio of the within-subject standard deviation to the mean values obtained on days 1 and 2 (within-subject standard deviation/GM) was used to determine the condition with the best repeatability.
Results:
Twenty-four healthy subjects, aged 24.6 ± 3.8 years, were recruited. The area under the curve of the vasodilatory response to post-occlusive reactivity showed marked variability (within-subject standard deviation/GM = 0.83), while the area under the curve for acetylcholine exhibited less variability (within-subject standard deviation/ GM = 0.52) and was comparable to the responses to sodium nitroprusside and thermal treatment (within-subject standard deviations/GM of 0.67 and 0.56, respectively). The area under the blood flow/time curve for vasodilation during acetylcholine administration required the smallest sample sizes, the area under the blood flow/time curve during post-occlusive reactivity required the largest sample sizes, and the area under the blood flow/time curves of vasodilation induced by sodium nitroprusside and thermal treatment required intermediate sizes.
Conclusions:
In view of the importance of random error related to the day-to-day repeatability of laser Doppler perfusion monitoring, we propose an original and robust statistical methodology for use in designing prospective clinical studies.
