The agreement between pulmonary and systemic blood flow measurements in babies by dual beam Doppler echocardiography

Abstract

Measurement of cardiac output within the great arteries of infants by non-invasive Doppler echocardiographic techniques is limited. This paper describes a simple method, based on dual beam Doppler, that is capable of measuring the pulmonary and systemic blood flows independently of the vessel diameter and beam-blood flow angle. In 27 babies (12 of them were premature born) without intracardial shunts the accuracy of this method in measuring cardiac output was evaluated. The mean difference between pulmonary and systemic blood flow measurements was 0.02 (SD 0.06) 1 min-1. This study demonstrates a good agreement between the pulmonary and systemic blood flow measurements using dual beam Doppler ultrasound in babies.