Publication Date
3-1-2024
Journal
International Wound Journal
DOI
10.1111/iwj.14814
PMID
38415898
PMCID
PMC10900916
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
2-28-2024
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Keywords
Humans, Healthy Volunteers, Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared, Oxygen Saturation, Oxyhemoglobins, Foot, Fitzpatrick skin type, haemoglobin, microvasculature, near‐infrared spectroscopy, perfusion assessment foot, tissue oxygenation foot
Abstract
Our objective was to evaluate normative data for near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in 110 healthy volunteers by Fitzpatrick skin type (FST) and region of the foot. We obtained measurements of the dorsum and plantar foot using a commercially available device (SnapshotNIR, Kent Imaging, Calgary Canada). On the dorsum of the foot, people with FST6 had significantly lower oxygen saturation compared to FST1‐5 (p < 0.001), lower oxyhaemoglobin compared to FST2‐5 (p = 0.001), but there was no difference in deoxyhaemoglobin. No differences were found on the plantar foot. When comparing dorsal and plantar foot, there was higher oxyhaemoglobin (0.40 ± 0.09 vs. 0.51 ± 0.12, p < 0.001) and deoxyhaemoglobin (0.16 ± 0.05 vs. 0.21 ± 0.05, p < 0.001) on the plantar foot, but no differences in oxygen saturation (dorsal 70.7 ± 10.8, plantar 70.0 ± 9.5, p = 0.414). In 6.4% of feet, there were black areas, for which no NIRS measurements could be generated. All areas with no data were on the dorsal foot and only found in FST 5–6. People with FST6 had significantly larger areas with no data compared to FST 5 (22.2 cm2 ± 20.4 vs. 1.9 cm2 ± 0.90, p = 0.007). These findings should be considered when using NIRS technology. Skin pigmentation should be evaluated in future NIRS studies.