Shibata Sorataro, Ujihara Yoshihiro, Nakamura Masanori, Sugita Shukei
Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8555, Japan.
Nagoya Institute of Technology.
J Biomech Eng. 2025 Feb 1;147(2). doi: 10.1115/1.4067209.
Capillary refill time (CRT) is a widely used noninvasive measure of cardiovascular health. Despite its widespread diagnostic utility, it has several limitations, particularly its low sensitivity for certain conditions, because factors such as the contraction and relaxation of distal blood vessels can influence CRT readings. This study was performed to explore the relationships between CRT and distal blood flow. The right hand of each of ten healthy adult volunteers was cooled to induce blood vessel contraction. CRT, fingertip temperature, and blood flowrate were measured using a custom device, a thermometer, and a laser Doppler blood flowmeter, respectively, before and after cooling. Hand cooling significantly decreased blood flowrate and increased CRT. A robust inverse correlation was observed between blood flowrate and CRT, supporting a model where CRT is the time required for blood to flow through a cylindrical pipe. Furthermore, CRT showed a significant negative correlation with fingertip temperature. Most participants had high correlation coefficients, although two showed lower values. However, all data points exhibited a linear relationship, with the slopes of the regression lines between CRT and temperature varying among participants. These results suggested that the slope between CRT and fingertip temperature indicates individual differences in arterial contractility. These findings could improve the diagnostic utility of CRT in assessing vascular health, including arterial age and Raynaud's phenomenon, based on the contractility of peripheral arteries.
毛细血管再充盈时间（CRT）是一种广泛应用于心血管健康评估的非侵入性指标。尽管其具有广泛的诊断用途，但它也存在一些局限性，特别是在某些情况下其敏感性较低，因为诸如远端血管的收缩和舒张等因素会影响CRT读数。本研究旨在探讨CRT与远端血流之间的关系。对十名健康成年志愿者的右手进行冷却以诱导血管收缩。在冷却前后，分别使用定制设备、温度计和激光多普勒血流仪测量CRT、指尖温度和血流速率。手部冷却显著降低了血流速率并增加了CRT。观察到血流速率与CRT之间存在强烈的负相关，支持了CRT是血液流经圆柱形管道所需时间的模型。此外，CRT与指尖温度呈显著负相关。大多数参与者的相关系数较高，尽管有两名参与者的相关系数较低。然而，所有数据点均呈现线性关系，CRT与温度之间回归线的斜率在参与者之间有所不同。这些结果表明，CRT与指尖温度之间的斜率表明了动脉收缩性的个体差异。这些发现可能会提高CRT在基于外周动脉收缩性评估血管健康（包括动脉年龄和雷诺现象）方面的诊断效用。
