Quantifying and correcting underestimation of cardiac Doppler blood flow velocities using dual PW/DTI technique

Abstract

Objective To quantify the underestimation of cardiac blood flow velocities measured by Doppler echocardiography and to explore a method for correction using a new explored dual PW/TDI technique.Methods The dual PW/DTI mode was used to simultaneously record the aortic,mitral,tricuspid and pulmonary valvular blood flow velocity and the adjacent valvular annulus velocity in forty healthy volunteers,then the underestimations of the flow velocities were calculated.Results The true blood flow velocity relative to the valvular annulus could be obtained by dual PW/TDI technique.Conventional Doppler echocardiographic measurements significantly underestimated the true velocity ( P ＜ 0.001).The actual aortic blood flow velocity had a significant underestimation of (8.5 ± 1.2) ％,the actual flow velocity of the pulmonary artery had a significant underestimation of (6.6 ± 1.1) ％,the underestimations of E and A wave of mitralvalve's were (13.4 ± 1.7)％ and (16.7± 3.4)％,the underestimations of E and A wave of tricuspid valve' s were ( 18.7 ± 1.9) ％ and (26.0 ± 16.1 ) ％.Conclusions The cardiac blood flow velocity measured by Doppler ultrasound has been significantly underestimated and this underestimation can be quantified and corrected using dual PW/DTI technique based on the principle of motion relativity. Key words: Echocardiography; Blood flow velocity; Heart valves; Pulse wave Doppler; Tissue Doppler imaging