Inhibited cold-induced vasodilatation in patients with vibration-induced white finger.

: We investigated cold induced vasodilatation in 37 vibration-exposed men without vibration-induced white finger (VWF) and 20 men with VWF. The left third finger was dipped into a cooling box and was cooled with cold air of 5 degrees C for 15 min. Finger skin blood flow during the cold stimulus was measured using the laser-Doppler method. We observed that cold-induced vasodilatation was inhibited in patients with VWF and the cold air test was relatively useful for diagnosis VWF.