In physiology, perfusion is the process of nutritive delivery of arterial blood to a capillary bed in the biological tissue. The word is derived from the French verb "perfuser" meaning to "pour over or through."
Tests of adequate perfusion are a part of the patient assessment process performed by medical or emergency personnel. The most common methods include evaluating skin color, temperature, condition and capillary refill.
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The terms "overperfusion" and "underperfusion" are measured relative to the average level of perfusion across all tissues in an individual body, and the terms should not be confused with hypoperfusion and "hyperperfusion", which measure the perfusion level relative to the tissue's current need.
Tissues like the skin are considered overperfused and receive more blood than would be expected to meet the metabolic needs of the tissue. In the case of the skin, extra blood flow is used for thermoregulation. In addition to delivering oxygen, the blood helps dissipate heat by redirecting warm blood close to the surface where it can cool the body through sweating and thermal radiation.
Two main categories of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques can be used to measure tissue perfusion in vivo.
In 1920 August Krogh was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the mechanism of regulation of the capillaries in skeletal muscle. Krogh was first to describe the adaptation of blood perfusion in muscle and other organs according to demands through opening and closing the arterioles and capillaries.
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