Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation

Open Access

By default, articles published in Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation are available only to institutions and individuals with access rights. However, the journal offers all authors the option to purchase open access publication for their article as part of the IOS Press Open Library. This means that the final published version will be freely available to anyone worldwide, indefinitely, under a Creative Commons license and without the need to purchase access to the article. This is also referred to as “gold” open access.

Gold open access pricing
Authors who choose gold open access publication will be subject to an article publication charge of €1500 / US$1500 for publication under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license or €2150 / US$2150 for publication under the CC BY 4.0 license. Pricing is exclusive of possible taxes. After an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be informed regarding the open access option during the production stages, and will have the opportunity to purchase open access for their article. It could be that the open access fee of an article is waived completely due an institutional agreement IOS Press has with the corresponding authors' institution. Please check the institutional agreements page for details.

Green open access
Authors who do not make use of the gold open access option may still make their article freely available using self-archiving, also referred to as green open access. Authors may make their final accepted manuscript available for free download from their personal or institutional website or institutional archive. This model is free for the author.

PubMedCentral deposits
This journal deposits all open access articles in PubMedCentral (PMC) as part of the IOS Press Open Library. If an author chooses to publish their paper with open access then the publisher will deposit the article in PMC upon publication.

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation Peer Review Policy

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation is a peer-reviewed journal. All articles submitted to the journal undergo a single blind peer review process. This means that the identity of the authors is known with the reviewers but the identity of the reviewers is not communicated to the authors. Please visit our reviewer guidelines for further information about how to conduct a review.

All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editors-in-Chief, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to rigorous peer-review by independent, anonymous expert referees. Reasons to reject a paper in the pre-screening process could for example be because the work does not fall within the aims and scope, the writing is of poor quality, the instructions to authors were not followed or the presented work is not novel. Desk rejections are communicated within a few days after submission.

Papers deemed suitable to be reviewed will be assigned a section editor. The section editor will then invite reviewers to comment on the work. Typically decisions are based on three reviews, in some circumstances a minimum of two reviews may be deemed sufficient to make a decision on a paper. The Editors-in-Chief strive to ensure a typical turnaround time of 3 months from submission until a decision is communicated to the authors.

Reviewers are asked to judge a paper on at least:

• Originality, novelty and significance of results
• Technical quality of work
• Comprehensibility and presentation of the paper
• Overall impression

Based on the received reviews the handling section editor will propose to the Editors-in-Chief a recommendation:

• Accept
• Minor revisions required
• Major revisions required
• Reject

They mean the following:

1. Accept: The manuscript is suitable for publication and only requires minor polishing; thus, no further reviews are requested.
2. Minor revisions required: The authors are required to make moderate changes to their manuscript. The manuscript becomes acceptable for publication if the changes proposed by the reviewers and editors are successfully addressed. The revised manuscript will be examined by the Editors-in-Chief and possibly sent back to all (or a selection of) reviewers for a second round of reviews. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers detailing the improvements made for the resubmission.
3. Major revisions required: The manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in its current form. However, a major revision which addresses all issues raised by the reviewers may be acceptable for publication. The revised manuscript will undergo a full second round of review. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers detailing the improvements made for the resubmission. The article may still be rejected in the revision round.
4. Reject: The manuscript is rejected as it is deemed to be out of scope, not relevant, or not meeting the journal’s quality standards in terms of significance, novelty, and/or presentation.

Authors are notified by the Editors-in-Chief, whose decision is final.

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2021:

"Anti-inflammatory iron chelator, DIBI, reduces leukocyte-endothelial adhesion and clinical symptoms of LPS-induced interstitial cystitis in mice"

G. Hagn, B. Holbein, J. Zhou and C. Lehmann

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 79(3), 2021, 395-406. doi: 10.3233/CH201078

The authors evaluated the effects of DIBI on LPS induced IC in mice. Leukocyte activation, endothelial adhesion and functional capillary density were assessed by intravital microscopy of the bladder microcirculation following a single intravesical LPS administration with or without intravesical DIBI treatment. In addition, clinical IC symptoms were also assessed through behavioral and pain threshold force measurements.

The study revealed that DIBI reduced inflammatory endothelial leukocyte adhesion and key indices related to pain and suffering over those observed in untreated IC mice. Their findings suggest a potential therapeutic role for DIBI for IC treatment.

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2020:

"Microrheology, microcirculation and structural compensatory mechanisms of a chronic kidney disease rat model. A preliminary study"

Souleiman Ghanem, Tamas Lesznyak, Laszlo Fazekas, Bence Tanczos, Barbara Barath, Maitham Nasser, Laszlo Horvath, Laszlo Bidiga, Balazs Szabo, Adam Deak, Katalin Peto and Norbert Nemeth

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 75(1), 2020; 47-56. doi: 10.3233/CH-190763.

The authors studied two groups of female Sprague-Dawley rats: one subjected to nephrectomy and one sham-operated group where no intervention was made. The study revealed that serum creatinine increased in the nephrectomy group (p = 0.008), accompanied with a decrease of red blood cell count (p = 0.028) and hemoglobin concentration (p = 0.015). Erythrocyte aggregation parameters slightly increased in nephrectomy group, while red blood cell deformability did not show any significant changes. The microcirculation remained intact in the remnant kidney of the nephrectomy group. However, in comparison with the sham-operated group, the diameter of glomeruli increased significantly (p < 0.01). The authors concluded that erythrocyte mass was influenced more than micro-rheological properties in this model. The main compensation mechanism was rather structural than at microcirculatory level.

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2019:

"Amyloid β peptide affects erythrocyte morphology: Role of intracellular signaling pathways"

Simone Dinarelli, Marco Girasole and Francesco Misiti

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 71(4), 2019, 437-449. doi: 10.3233/CH-199007.

"S. Dinarelli and colleagues received the Prize for their prospective study about the relationship between amyloid peptide and erythrocyte morphology and the role of intracellular pathways. The study revealed that amyloid ß treatment accelerated the occurrence of morphological and biochemical aging markers in human red blood cells and influenced the cell metabolism. Biochemical data demonstrated that contemporaneously to morphological alterations, Aβ triggers: (i) metabolic alterations and (ii) a complex signaling pathway involving caspase 3, protein kinase C and nitric oxide derived metabolites. The study provides an insight how amyloid ß treatment of RBC induced changes in specific cell signalling events and/or metabolic pathways, in turns affecting the membrane-cytoskeleton interaction and the membrane integrity." [ F. Jung, P. Connes, C. Lehmann, A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2019, Clin Hemorheol Microcirc 75(1) (2020), doi: 10.3233/CH-209100]

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2018:

"Impact of plasma viscosity on microcirculatory flow after traumatic haemorrhagic shock: A prospective observational study"

D.N. Naumann, J. Hazeldine, J. Bishop, M.J. Midwinter, P. Harrison, G. Nash and S.D. Hutchings.

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 71(1), 2019, 71-82. doi: 10.3233/CH-180397.

The authors tested the hypothesis that changes in plasma viscosity affect microcirculatory flow following injury and haemorrhagic shock. There is evidence from preclinical studies (particularly small animal models) that increased plasma viscosity may improve flow, but this had not yet been tested in a clinical setting. This is particularly important because viscosity may be a physical property of importance when designing and selecting resuscitation fluids. The authors were the first to compare microcirculatory flow parameters (using sublingual incident dark field video-microscopy) with plasma viscosity (measured using a Wells-Brookfield cone and plate micro-viscometer) in a cohort of patients admitted to hospital following major trauma. They found no evidence of improved microcirculatory flow in the presence of higher viscosity, which seems to contrast with evidence from animal studies. These findings cast some doubt on the translatability of animal studies to more complex clinical scenarios, and suggest that further investigations are required to determine whether the viscosity of resuscitation fluid is indeed a factor of relevance in clinical practice.

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2017:

"The relationship between hemorheological parameters and mortality in critically ill patients with and without sepsis"

K. Totsimon, K. Biro, Z.E. Szabo, K. Toth, P. Kenyeres and Z. Marton

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 65(2), 2017, 119-129. doi: 10.3233/CH-16136.

The authors investigated the prognostic role of hemorheological parameters in critical ill patients. They compared the changes of rheological variables to hemodynamic alterations and to well-known prognostic scores. Patients treated on intensive care unit with different non-surgical diseases were studied. Routine laboratory parameters and prognostic scores (APACHE, SAPS) were determined and hemorheological variables (hematocrit, plasma and whole blood viscosity, red blood cell aggregation and deformability) were measured atn different time points. Whole blood viscosity and red blood cell deformability were found lower, red blood cell aggregation higher in septic than in nonseptic patients. In nonseptic patients whole blood viscosity, red blood cell aggregation were higher in nonsurvivors compared to survivors. Worsening of red blood cell deformability predicted higher mortality. Their findings prove that rheological parameters (especially red blood cell aggregation deformability) could predict mortality in severely ill patients and they may add prognostic information over the routine ICU scores.

Winner of the A.L. Copley Best Paper Prize 2016:

"Retinal vessel regulation at high altitudes"

T. Neumann, M. Baertschi, W. Vilser, S. Drinda, M. Franz, A. Bruckmann, G. Wolf and C. Jung

Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 63(3),2016, 281-292. doi: 10.3233/CH-162041.

The authors set up a two parts study where 1) healthy individuals were exposed to a simulated altitude of 5500 meters and 2) a second group of healthy individuals were brought to a mountain station at an altitude of 3000 meters. In the second part of the study, individuals were also treated with a dual endothelin (ET) receptor antagonist that binds the two ET receptor subtypes, ETA and ETB. The authors investigated the retinal vessel diameter, response to flicker light, retinal oxygen saturation and retinal venous pressure in the different experimental conditions. Both hypoxic exposures caused an increase of retinal arterial and venous diameters and a decrease of the arterial and venous response to flicker light. In the second part of the study, retinal venous pressure increased in 6 individuals after ascent to 3000 meters and normalized after dual ET receptor antagonist. This finding clearly shows that hypoxia may disturb retinal vascular reactivity in apparently healthy individuals and highlight the effects of blocking ET receptors in such an environmental situation.