Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Microcirculation. 2021 Apr;28(3):e12683. doi: 10.1111/micc.12683. Epub 2021 Mar 13.
The past few decades have seen an explosion in the development and use of methods for imaging the human microcirculation during health and disease. The confluence of innovative imaging technologies, affordable computing power, and economies of scale have ushered in a new era of "translational" imaging that permit us to peer into blood vessels of various organs in the human body. These imaging techniques include near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that are sensitive to microvascular-derived signals, as well as computed tomography (CT), optical imaging, and ultrasound (US) imaging that are capable of directly acquiring images at, or close to microvascular spatial resolution. Collectively, these imaging modalities enable us to characterize the morphological and functional changes in a tissue's microcirculation that are known to accompany the initiation and progression of numerous pathologies. Although there have been significant advances for imaging the microcirculation in preclinical models, this review focuses on developments in the assessment of the microcirculation in patients with optical imaging, NIRS, PET, US, MRI, and CT, to name a few. The goal of this review is to serve as a springboard for exploring the burgeoning role of translational imaging technologies for interrogating the structural and functional status of the microcirculation in humans, and highlight the breadth of current clinical applications. Making the human microcirculation "visible" in vivo to clinicians and researchers alike will facilitate bench-to-bedside discoveries and enhance the diagnosis and management of disease.
在过去的几十年中，人们开发和使用了许多方法来在健康和疾病期间对人体微循环进行成像，这些方法层出不穷。创新的成像技术、可负担的计算能力和规模经济的融合，开创了“转化”成像的新时代，使我们能够窥视人体各种器官的血管。这些成像技术包括近红外光谱（NIRS）、正电子发射断层扫描（PET）和磁共振成像（MRI），它们对源自微血管的信号敏感，以及计算机断层扫描（CT）、光学成像和超声（US）成像，它们能够直接获取接近微血管空间分辨率的图像。这些成像方式使我们能够描述组织微循环的形态和功能变化，这些变化已知伴随着许多病理学的发生和发展。尽管在临床前模型中对微循环成像已经取得了重大进展，但本篇综述重点介绍了光学成像、NIRS、PET、US、MRI 和 CT 等评估患者微循环的发展。本篇综述的目的是为探索转化成像技术在研究人类微循环的结构和功能状态方面的新兴作用提供跳板，并强调当前临床应用的广泛性。使临床医生和研究人员能够在体内“看到”人体微循环，将有助于促进从实验室到临床的发现，并增强疾病的诊断和管理。
