• H W Schytz, T Wienecke, L T Jensen, J Selb, D A Boas, and M Ashina.
• Danish Headache Center and Department of Neurology Glostrup Hospital, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Glostrup, Denmark. henrikschytz@dadlnet.dk
• Eur. J. Neurol. 2009 Apr 1; 16 (4): 461-7.

Background And PurposeIt is important to find a reliable and bedside method, which can estimate the cerebral blood flow (CBF) of patients in clinical settings. Estimation of CBF by calculating a blood flow index (BFI) using continuous wave near-infrared spectroscopy (CW-NIRS) and indocyanine green (ICG) as an i.v. tracer has been proposed to be a feasible and promising method. To validate if the BFI method can detect relative changes in CBF we compared data with the established method (133)Xenon single photon emission computer tomography ((133)Xe-SPECT).MethodsTen healthy subjects were investigated before and after a bolus of acetazolamide. NIRS data were obtained using a multi source detector separation configuration in order to assess a corrected BFI (BFI(corr)) value, which attempts to eliminate contamination of skin blood flow.ResultsData obtained showed no significant correlation between CBF changes measured by (133)Xe-SPECT and BFI(corr) (0.133, P = 0.732). After acetazolamide, a 49% increase in CBF was detected using the (133)Xe-SPECT method, whereas no changes in any ICG variables were observed after acetazolamide.ConclusionThe study shows that it is not possible to obtain reliable BFI data, which reflect changes in CBF after acetazolamide infusion, using the CW-NIRS and ICG method.

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