How to evaluate the microcirculation: report of a round table conference

Microvascular alterations may play an important role in the development of organ failure in critically ill patients and especially in sepsis. Recent advances in technology have allowed visualization of the microcirculation, but several scoring systems have been used so it is sometimes difficult to compare studies. This paper reports the results of a round table conference that was organized in Amsterdam in November 2006 in order to achieve consensus on image acquisition and analysis.

The participants convened to discuss the various aspects of image acquisition and the different scores, and a consensus statement was drafted using the Delphi methodology.