Plethysmography

Venous occlusion plethysmography has been used extensively to study human vascular physiology in vivo, including i.a. drug administration.

In fact, forearm venous occlusion plethysmography with local brachial artery infusion has become one of the golden standards in the assessment of vascular function in health and disease, and an accurate, reproducible and convenient method to assess the effect of new vasoactive drugs and hormones in humans in vivo. The advantage of the plethysmography technique is that drugs can be given at doses 10 to 100 times below those causing systemic effects because forearm blood flow is very sensitive.