2007 Volume 1 Issue 1 Pages 5-8
Recent technological advances of the CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) video-probe have made microscopes more compact and greatly improved their sensitivity. Additionally, this progress has enabled researchers to utilize such devices for clinical application. We newly designed a compact capillaroscopy which was composed with a CCD video-probe equipped a contact-type objective lens and illuminator. In the present study, we evaluated usefulness of the instrument for a bed-side human capillaroscopy to observe the capillary flow in various dermal regions. The influences of tissue compression on the dermal capillary blood flow were also investigated to confirm the utility for clinical applications. Our capillaroscopy visualized the nutritional capillary blood flow in almost all parts of skin surface. The video images to visualize the dermal capillary flow in the nail-fold of the middle finger during tissue compression are shown in the motion pictures. All nutritional capillary loops run parallel to the skin surface, and can be clearly visualized in their full length. By increasing the loaded vertical stress at 40 mmHg, which value might be slightly higher than capillary pressure, all capillaries could not be collapsed and the erythrocytes in all capillaries are still flowing. Our observations showed that a level of vertical stress similar to arterial pressure was required to stop the capillary flow. From these demonstrations the present CCD video-probe based capillaroscopy would be useful for clinical applications as a bed-side human capillaroscopy.
