[Reproducibility of blood-flow measurement in the human forehead skin using thermodynamic probes]

The reproducibility (test-retest-reliability) of the forehead skin blood flow (method: fluvography or heat clearance) was tested by means of determination of the intraclass correlation coefficient. Defined changes of skin blood flow may be caused by loading a heat flow probe with weights; this was done in the range from 20 p to 500 p both in an ascending and a descending manner. A good reproducibility of results was reached in all repeated measurements made at intervals of one or several days. The correlation coefficient increases with increasing loads (r = 0.471 at a loading of 20 p; r = 0.813 at a load of 500 p).