Rapid clinical assessment of the sublingual microcirculation - Visual scoring using microVAS in comparison to standard semi-automated analysis.

Rationale: Alterations in human microcirculation occur in many disease states leading to morbidity and mortality, however assessing the microcirculation is not standard clinical practice. Standard microcirculation analysis using semi-automated analysis is expensive, time consuming, and expertise dependent making it unfeasible. We proposed a novel visual scoring system (microVAS) for the analysis of microcirculation videos that can be performed at the patient bedside in real time.