Approaches to improve the predictive value of laser Doppler flowmetry in detection of microcirculation disorders in diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND: Laser Doppler flowmetry is widely used in scientific studies of blood microcirculation but constrained in clinical use due to the low diagnostic significance. OBJECTIVE: This research is aimed at creation of approaches to prognostic value increase in detection of microcirculation disorders in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. METHODS: The study included 10 volunteers and 10 patients with t2DM. Participants were observed using postural-heating test with LAKK-02 complex. We calculated median microcirculation for each period and then held a retroactive classification of the surveyed groups. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences between groups were found in the perfusion during the combination of postural and heating impacts. Conversion of this perfusion in the relative index (Irel) (relative to the baseline perfusion), allowed us to increase the significance of the differences. The value of AUC (95% CI) during the ROC-analysis in reverse classification was 0.81 (0,60-1,0) for the period of the impacts combination, and 0.93 (0,81-1,0) for Irel index. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated the possibility of using LDF method to achieve predictive value in the detection of microcirculatory disorders in an individual patient with diabetes. This extends the perspectives of the method beyond the purely scientific research. © 2018-IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.