Healthy Age-dependent Reference Values for Microvascular Structure and Function

University of Surrey50 enrolled

Overview

The greatest challenge in our ageing society are cardiovascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack, peripheral artery disease of the legs with non-healing wounds (ulcers), or diabetes. How healthy ageing affects the smallest blood vessels (microcirculation) and is not well understood. One reason for this is that no generally available medical instrument has the resolution to study the microcirculation. The recently developed optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), currently mainly used by eye doctors, is able to visualise the microcirculation. We have developed an automated software (OCTAVA) to determine metrics to characterise the microcirculation on the layers of density, diameter and tortuosity. In the current study we aim at providing reference values of these metrics in hands and feet of healthy people according to age together with macrovascular function in arms and legs.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

Conditions

Vascular Endothelium Microvascular Circulation Arterial Stiffness Healthy Ageing

Interventions

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 20 YearsMax age: 70 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion criteria: Healthy, 20-70 years, BMI 20-30 kg/m\^2 Exclusion criteria: Diabetes mellitus, symptoms of acute infection, cardiac arrhythmias, active malignancy, clinical signs or symptoms of cardiovascular disease (coronary artery disease, lower extremity artery disease, cerebrovascular disease): angina pectoris, dyspnea, palpitation, syncope, claudication, active vasoactive medication.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Microvascular density

Density of skin microvasculature of hand and foot with OCTA at rest and after 5 min distal occlusion