TY  - JOUR
AU  - Massotti, Carlotta
AU  - Bertoli, Paolo
AU  - Mauro, Marcella
AU  - Tarabini, Marco
AU  - Tirabasso, Angelo
AU  - Bovenzi, Massimo
TI  - A Portable Heat-Exchange-Based System for Assessing Digital Vascular Response to Cold
PY  - %2026/%08/%03
Y2  - %2026/%08/%27
JF  - La Medicina del Lavoro
JA  - Med Lav
VL  - 117
IS  - 4
SE  - Original articles
DO  - 10.23749/mdl.2026.19227
UR  - https://doi.org/10.23749/mdl.2026.19227
SP  - 19227
AB  - Background: Digital vascular assessment is relevant in occupational medicine, but current measurement methods may be complex and poorly portable. Objective: To validate a portable heat-exchange-based system for assessing cold-induced digital vascular response, using strain-gauge plethysmography as the reference method. Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers, 10 males and 10 females, underwent five subsequent sessions. Finger blood flow (FBF) was assessed by strain-gauge plethysmography, while simultaneously, fingertip thermal power (TP) was recorded with a portable thermoflowmeter. FBF was measured at baseline, while both FBF and TP were measured during application of 1-N contact force alone and during 1-N force combined with local cooling at 10 °C. The relationship between TP and FBF, after adjustment for covariates (age, sex, body mass index (BMI), and room temperature), was evaluated in the cooled condition using a linear mixed model including fixed and random effects. Results: Local cooling induced a significant vascular response, with FBF decreasing from 1.23 to 0.98 ml/100 ml/s (p