Abstract
Endoscopic laser-Doppler flowmetry was used to evaluate the mucosal skin blood flow
in the terminal part of the sigmoid colon in 7 patients with ulcerative colitis and
in 8 normals subjects. In total, 229 observations were made. A MUSK (mucosal-skin
blood) flow index was obtained that was able to differentiate the normal from abnormal
mucosa and areas with different endoscopic characteristics.
The evaluation of mucosal skin blood flow is reproducible, correlated with the local
clinical appearance, and relatively simple, and it can be used to evaluate mucosal
flow.
