Table 6.

Other imaging techniques for oral perfusion assessment.

Author (year)	Diagnostic tool	Study design	Aim	Indication	Time evaluated	Results	Clinical relevance
Takeda et al., 2023	Capillaroscopy	Pre-clinical	Examine gingival capillaries and the influence of diabetes on gingival microcirculation	Periodontitis	1 time point	Gingival microcirculation was not found to be associated with periodontal parameters, but the presence of capillary morphology was higher in diabetes.	Morphological abnormalities of gingival capillaries were oral manifestations of diabetes
Townsend 2022	Laser perfusion, Video Capillaroscopy and OCT	Clinical	Measure changes in arteriolar and venular capillary flow and structure in the gingival tissues during plaque gingival inflammation	Periodontitis	3 weeks	Reduced capillary flow associated with the development of venular capillaries	Microvascular imaging in gingival tissue could help to understand why some people develop periodontal breakdown
Yilmaz and Atlas 2021	Videocapillaroscopy	Clinical	Evaluate microvascular alterations (capillary loop visibility, capillary orientation to surface, microhemorrhages, capillary density and tortuosity) in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)	Maxillary anterior masticatory or gingival mucosa.	1 time point	Capillary density was increased in gestational DM. Higher tortuosity scores are seen in healthy non pregnant subjects	There is an impact on gingival microcirculatory changes in pregnancy and GDM
Le et al., 2018	Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence angiography (OCTA)	Clinical	Propose a 3D technique to perform in situ imaging on human gingiva	Labial gingival tissues	1 time point	Significant structural and vascular differences between thin and thick biotypes	OCT/OCTA is feasible in quantifying gingival biotypes and inflammation severity
Bastos et al., 2016	Real time optical vascular imaging technique (RTOVI)	Clinical	To show a new technique to detect early signs of oral cancer in the gingival microvasculature for number of capillaries, capillary area (CA), total capillary area (TCA) and aspect ratio (AR)	Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD)	1 time point	Significant differences highlighting regional microvascular differences. TCA, APC, and AR showed no significant differences in healthy gingival tissue. The mean capillary count was higher than previously reported for the same oral mucosal location.	Mean values of CA, TCA and RA may be a reliable threshold values to compare healthy, inflammatory and mitotic lesions
Janovszky et al., 2014	Intravital Videomicroscopy (IVM)	Pre-clinical	Investigate zoledronate induced microcirculatory reactions in mandibular periosteum in comparison with the tibia with bisphosphonate induced medication	Tooth extraction	9 weeks	Use of zoledronate induced significantly higher degree of periosteal leukocyte rolling and adhesion in the mandibular postcapillary venules (in extracted and intact sites)	This model may contribute to the development of strategies to counteract bisphosphonate induced side effects
Scardina et al., 2014	Video capillaroscopy	Clinical	Evaluate biological microvascular response to orthodontic forces	Orthodontics forces	12 months	Capillary density increases significantly directly proportionate to application time of the orthodontic device	in vivo evaluation and quantification of microcirculatory changes and detecting subclinical changes in angiogenesis
Takano et al., 2010	Narrowband imaging (NBI)	Clinical	Analyze and describe intracapillary loops (IPCL)	Oral neroplastic lesions	1 time point	Non-neoplastic lesions showed mild capillary changes, while neoplastic had irregularly distributed loops with varied shapes	NBI may aid early diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma and help define resection margins by visualizing microvascular patterns