[Measurement of oral and facial blood flow with a laser Doppler flowmeter. 4. Alteration of oral blood flow by position change].

The laser doppler flowmeter was developed by Stern in 1975 and applied for practical use by Nilsson et al. in 1980. Since then, it has been used in various fields of medicine. The primary advantages of this device an that it is noninvasive and can monitor the blood flow continuously and rapidly. We used a Laser doppler flowmeter to continuously monitor the change in the oral peripheral blood flow due to changes in the body position of patients in a dental chair, since such changes are unavoidable during the course of dental treatment. A change from the sitting position to the supine position caused an increase in oral blood flow in 19 of 20 patients. In terms of the mean value per minute, oral blood flow was 23% greater in the supine position.