Doppler sonography assessment of blood flow velocity in the ascending aorta. Problems and possible solutions

Abstract

Irregularities of the transvascular distribution of blood flow within the human ascending aorta have been documented by means of 16 Doppler gates positioned along one scanline of a sector scanner. The velocity profiles recorded from ten healthy adults, ten patients suffering from hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, ten patients suffering from hypertrophic nonobstructive cardiomyopathy, and ten patients with severe aortic insufficiency exhibited nonuniformities which varied not only from individual to individual but also between the groups and depending on the phase of the cardiac cycle. These variations prevent any local measurement from being representative for the instantaneous mean velocity in all cases. A reliable mean should therefore be determined by simultaneously taking into account all velocities within the vascular cross-section. A computer simulation in order to indicate a potential solution to this problem demonstrates that an annular array transducer can be excited in such a manner that it produces a homogeneous ultrasound beam of a transverse area a hundred times larger than the one obtained in the conventional maximally focussed mode.