title: Clinical applications of near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy and tomography for tissue blood flow monitoring and imaging.
abstract: Blood flow is one such available observable promoting a wealth of physiological insight both individually and in combination with other metrics.
  
  
  
  Near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and, to a lesser extent, diffuse correlation tomography (DCT), have increasingly received interest over the past decade as noninvasive methods for tissue blood flow measurements and imaging. DCS/DCT offers several attractive features for tissue blood flow measurements/imaging such as noninvasiveness, portability, high temporal resolution, and relatively large penetration depth (up to several centimeters).
  
  
  
  This review first introduces the basic principle and instrumentation of DCS/DCT, followed by presenting clinical application examples of DCS/DCT for the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of diseases in a variety of organs/tissues including brain, skeletal muscle, and tumor.
  
  
  
  Clinical study results demonstrate technical versatility of DCS/DCT in providing important information for disease diagnosis and intervention monitoring.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Instrumentation Science & Dynamic Measurement, North University of China, No.3 Xueyuan Road Taiyuan, Shanxi 030051, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Guoqiang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001775:Blood Circulation; D004058:Diffusion; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / Q000379:methods*; D014054:Tomography / Q000379:methods*