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Practical vascular medicine get benefits from noninvasive, atraumatic, and monitoring-enabling nature of the optical methods that ensure analyzing arterial, venular, and microvessel blood flow; controlling chemical composition ofthe blood; and assessing the level of blood saturation with oxygen. Currently the most required methods are photoplethysrnography, laser Doppler flowmetry, and pulse oximetry. This report highlights the history ofthe method development, their physical grounds, technical realization, modern state, application fields, the measurement precision, and further prospects. The methods of studying the peripheral blood flow are grounded on the modern achievements of fundamental physics. The discoveries in physics and technologies (photoeffect, photodetecting, optical mixing, photoernission, lasers, etc.) resulted in development ofphotoplethysmography, laser Doppler flowrnetry, and pulse oximetry. Among the major research directions related to the application ofthese methods are the study oftranscapillary exchange, tomography ofrnicrocirculation system, and visualization ofthe microvessels. Further development ofthe conventional methods, first ofall, in direction of raising the precision ofthe measurement and development ofthe controlling instruments is ofa great importance as well.
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