Laser Doppler Measurements of Blood Flow in Capillary Tubes and Retinal Arteries

This content is PDF only. Please click on the PDF icon to access.

Abstract

We have used the technique of Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) to measure the velocity of blood folowing in retinal arteries of the rabbit. This technique does not require mechanical perturbation of the blood flow or alteration of chemical environment. It is more precise and clinically less demanding than previous methods, and gives information on the velocity distribution as well as the average velocity. We have also used LDV to measure the velocity distribution of whole blood, flowing in 200 µ diameter capillary tubes; our measurements agree with previous experimental results for the flow of erythrocyte ghost suspensions in larger tubes. Similar measurements on dilute suspensions of polystyrene spheres agree well with the hydrodynamic predictions.