PURPOSE Open lower leg fractures are frequently associated with severe soft tissue damage, followed by osteomyelitis. Using an animal experimental model, we investigated the effect of timing of coverage of a tibial fracture with a local muscle flap. METHODS 80 rabbits had a tibial fracture induced in a standardised fashion, which was stabilised by screw osteosynthesis. After 3 (group A; n=40)...

BACKGROUND In functional disorders it is unknown whether disturbed function is due to an intrinsic gut abnormality or altered extrinsic innervation. AIMS To study whether measurement of mucosal blood flow could be used as a quantitative direct measure of gut extrinsic nerve autonomic activity in patients with idiopathic constipation. METHODS Seventy two patients with idiopathic constipation...

In a recent article in this journal, Grunwald et al. 1 quantified foveolar choroidal blood flow using a Laser Doppler flowmeter in patients with nonexudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). They found that choroidal blood volume and choroidal blood flow in patients with AMD were significantly reduced. However, they found no statistically significant difference for the choroidal blood ve...

BACKGROUND Ischemic preconditioning (IP) may protect the liver from ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) injury during liver resection. This study investigated the effect of IP on hepatic microcirculation (HM) and analyzed the objective parameters of the HM using laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF). METHODS We used male Wistar rats (250-280 g) that underwent normothermic, segmental liver ischemia. The animal...

BACKGROUND The objective of our research was to use a noninvasive tomographic imaging technique with high spatial resolution (2-15 microm) to characterize and monitor fluid flow and the microvasculature in highly scattering biological tissues at user-specified discrete locations. METHODS The technique of optical Doppler tomography (ODT) combines laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) with optical cohe...