[Superficial blood flow (SBF) in 193 patients with traumatic paraplegia]

SBF in 15 regions (sacral spot and bilateral nail-fold, Zu-San-Li, San-Yin-Jiao, Tai-Xi, Xing-Jian, Guan-Yuan-Shu and femur) was measured by means of Laser Doppler Flowmeter in 193 patients with paraplegia resulted from trauma during the Tangshan earthquake, and the result was compared with that in 53 normal subjects. The results showed: (1) The SBF in region of the patients' limbs was more decreased than that in normal subjects (P less than 0.001). (2) There was also a declining of SBF in the right femur as compared with the normal (P less than 0.001). (3) The bilateral nail-fold blood flow in 55 patients with injury of vertebrae thoracales was significantly lower than that in 38 patients with lumbar vertebrae injury, indicating that having lived for 12 years since spinal cord injury, the patients still have microcirculatory disturbance over the whole body. Since SBF at the predilection site of decubital ulcer was decreased significantly more than that at non-ulcer site, it would be very important to improve local microcirculatory perfusion for prevention and treatment of decubital ulcer.