Association between venous blood lactate levels and differences in quantitative capillary refill time

Capillary refill time has been widely adopted for clinical assessment of the circulatory status of patients in emergency settings. We previously introduced quantitative capillary refill time and found a positive association between longer quantitative capillary refill time and higher lactate levels in the intensive care units, but not in the emergency department. In this study, we aimed to identify a quantitative and clinically applicable index of circulatory status (ΔA b) that can be measured with quantitative capillary refill time, then evaluated the linear association between this index and lactate levels in the emergency department