Open AccessMorphologic Mapping of the Sublingual Microcirculation in Healthy Volunteers
Author(s) -
Göksel Güven,
Zühre Uz,
Matthias P. Hilty,
Burak Bilecenoğlu,
Şakir Akın,
Yasin Ince,
Can İnce
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of vascular research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1423-0135
pISSN - 1018-1172
DOI - 10.1159/000522394
Subject(s) - microcirculation , medicine , premolar , population , tortuosity , anatomy , buccal administration , molar , orthodontics , dentistry , chemistry , environmental health , organic chemistry , porosity
Purpose: Monitoring the sublingual and oral microcirculation (SM-OM) using hand-held vital microscopes (HVMs) has provided valuable insight into the (patho)physiology of diseases. However, the microvascular anatomy in a healthy population has not been adequately described yet. Methods: Incident dark field-based HVM imaging was used to visualize the SM-OM. First, the SM was divided into four different fields; Field-a (between incisors-lingua), Field-b (between the canine-first premolar-lingua), Field-c (between the first-second premolar-lingua), Field-d (between the second molar-wisdom teeth-lingua). Second, we investigated the buccal area, lower and upper lip. Total/functional vessel density (TVD/FCD), focus depth (FD), small vessel mean diameters (SVMDs), and capillary tortuosity score (CTS) were compared between the areas. Results: Fifteen volunteers with a mean age of 29 ± 6 years were enrolled. No statistical difference was found between the sublingual fields in terms of TVD ( p = 0.30), FCD ( p = 0.38), and FD ( p = 0.09). SVMD was similar in Field-a, Field-b, and Field-c ( p = 0.20–0.30), and larger in Field-d ( p < 0.01, p = 0.015). The CTS of the buccal area was higher than in the lips. Conclusion: The sublingual area has a homogenous distribution in TVD, FCD, FD, and SVMD. This study can be a description of the normal microvascular anatomy for future researches regarding microcirculatory assessment.