Brouwer, Fleur http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0365-3974
Ince, Can http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0933-9305
Pols, Jiska
Uz, Zühre http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9226-7508
Hilty, Matthias Peter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2765-881X
Arbous, Mendi Sesmu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5242-3257
Article History
Received: 15 March 2023
Accepted: 4 March 2024
First Online: 18 March 2024
Competing interests
: Dr. Ince developed sidestream darkfield imaging, which is the handheld video microscope and is listed as the inventor on related patents commercialized by MicroVision Medical under a license from the Academic Medical Center. He receives no royalties or benefits from this license. He has been a consultant for MicroVision Medical in the past but has not been involved with this company for more than 5 years now and holds no shares or stock. Braedius Medical, a company owned by a relative of Dr. Ince, developed and designed a handheld microscope, the Cytocam based on incident darkfield imaging, that was used in this study Dr. Ince has no financial relationship with Braedius Medical of any sort and has never owned shares, or received consultancy or speaker fees from Braedius Medical. The MicroTools software is being developed by Dr. Hilty and owned by Active Medical BV Leiden, The Netherlands, of which Dr. Ince and Dr. Hilty are shareholders. Active Medical runs an Internet site called microcirculationacademy.org<sup>32</sup> which offers educational courses and services related to clinical microcirculation. Dr. Ince’s institution received funding from La Jolla Pharmaceuticals and Cytosorbents Monmouth, and he received funding from Fresenius-Kabi. Dr. Ince and Dr. Hilty disclosed that the MicroTools software that was used for the analysis of the images in the current study is owned by Active Medical, of which Dr. Ince and Dr. Hilty own shares. The remaining authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest.