Peripheral Blood Flow Monitor

The Peripheral Blood Flow Monitor uses the thermal clearance method to non-invasively measure dermal blood flow (also referred to as peripheral flow and/or microcirculation) with the help of skin-contacted sensors. Essentially, this allows an assessment of changes in flow in the extensive capillary blood vessel network, which in turn provide a window into both the autonomic nervous system and local and global cardiovascular systems as well.

Very minimal heating of an area of the skin is affected while measurement of the heat energy loss along the skin's surface (through conduction along the skin, and convection by skin blood flow) is conducted. This method of measurement provides the unique ability to directly measure dermal blood flow in the microcirculation.

Early validation studies in a variety of clinical scenarios have shown good correlations between the DermaFlow technology and established methods of measuring peripheral blood flow.

A New Monitor to Measure Dermal Blood Flow in Critically Ill Patients: A Preliminary Study, Jonathan Cohen, Ilya Skoletsky, Rina Chen, Daniel Weiss, and Pierre Singer, ISRN Critical Care, Volume 2013 (2013),  Article ID 578316, 6 pages

However, the advantages of low cost, user-friendliness, accuracy, optimal sensitivity and ability to embed suggest that the DermaFlow system be considered as a first line technology for both clinical and consumer applications.