Ultrasound Flow Assessment in Curved Vessels: An In-Vitro Study

In clinical practice, ultrasound is frequently used as a non-invasive method to assess blood velocity and vessel wall position. For the velocity assessment, often Doppler ultrasound is applied. To perform Doppler velocity measurements, the ultrasound probe needs to be positioned at a certain insonification angle (non perpendicular) with respect to the blood velocity vector (figure 1). For volume flow estimation, both an accurate assessment of vessel wall position and axial velocity distribution is necessary. However, in order to achieve an accurate wall position assessment, a perpendicular insonification is necessary. As a result, a simultaneous assessment of velocity by Doppler ultrasound and wall position is impossible, which hampers an accurate flow assessment.