Measuring respiratory and locomotor muscle blood flow during exercise is pivotal for understanding the factors limiting exercise tolerance in health and disease. Traditional methods to measure muscle blood flow present limitations for exercise testing. This article reviews a method utilising near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in combination with the light-absorbing tracer indocyanine green dye (ICG) to simultaneously assess respiratory and locomotor muscle blood flow during exercise in health and disease. NIRS provides high spatiotemporal resolution and can detect chromophore concentrations. Intravenously administered ICG binds to albumin and undergoes rapid metabolism, making it suitable for repeated measurements. NIRS-ICG allows calculation of local muscle blood flow based on the rate of ICG accumulation in the muscle over time. Studies presented in this review provide evidence of the technical and clinical validity of the NIRS-ICG method in quantifying respiratory and locomotor muscle blood flow. Over the past decade, use of this method during exercise has provided insights into respiratory and locomotor muscle blood flow competition theory and the effect of ergogenic aids and pharmacological agents on local muscle blood flow distribution in COPD. Originally, arterial blood sampling was required via a photodensitometer, though the method has subsequently been adapted to provide a local muscle blood flow index using venous cannulation. In summary, the significance of the NIRS-ICG method is that it provides a minimally invasive tool to simultaneously assess respiratory and locomotor muscle blood flow at rest and during exercise in health and disease to better appreciate the impact of ergogenic aids or pharmacological treatments.
Keywords: Muscle blood flow; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; near-infrared spectroscopy.