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Updated: Jul 27, 2025

Assessment of Vascular Function in Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease
Published on: June 16, 2014
The sublingual microcirculation and frailty index in chronic kidney disease patients
Ryan A P Homes1, Fiona Giddens2, Ross S Francis3,4
1School of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Objective:
To examine the relationship between sublingual microcirculatory measures and frailty index in those attending a kidney transplant assessment clinic.
Methods:
Patients recruited had their sublingual microcirculation taken using sidestream dark field videomicroscopy (MicroScan, Micro Vision Medical, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and their frailty index score using a validated short form via interview.
Results:
A total of 44 patients were recruited with two being excluded due to microcirculatory image quality scores exceeding 10. The frailty index score indicated significant correlations with total vessel density (p < .0001, r = -.56), microvascular flow index (p = .004, r = -.43), portion of perfused vessels (p = .0004, r = -.52), heterogeneity index (p = .015, r = .32), and perfused vessel density (p < .0001, r = -.66). No correlation was shown between the frailty index and age (p = .08, r = .27).
Conclusions:
There is a relationship between the frailty index and microcirculatory health in those attending a kidney transplant assessment clinic, that is not confounded by age. These findings suggest that the impaired microcirculation may be an underlying cause of frailty.
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