title: An in vitro system for Doppler ultrasound flow studies in the stenosed carotid artery bifurcation.
abstract: To investigate the correlation between disease severity and Doppler spectral measurements in the carotid artery bifurcation, a unique in vitro system has been developed that mimics the human vasculature with respect to both anatomy and flow perfusion. Agar-based carotid phantoms are perfused with a blood-mimicking fluid using a computer-controlled pump and realistic pulsatile flow waveform. A three-axis translational stage allows the lumen to be interrogated with a 0.6-microL Doppler sample volume at the desired spatial intervals using a semiautomated acquisition system, to collect 10 cardiac cycles of gated quadrature data at each site. Off-line analysis, including a 1024-point FFT, produces a 4-D (i.e., time-varying 3-D) Doppler velocity data set with 1.3-cm/s velocity resolution and 12-ms temporal resolution. Using this system, in vitro flow in bifurcations with both normal and stenosed lumen geometry (from 30% to 80% stenosis by NASCET criteria) can be studied, along with the effect of factors, such as stenosis geometry (concentric vs. eccentric) and flow rate, on the observed Doppler ultrasound (US) spectra and haemodynamic patterns.
authors.affiliation: Imaging Research Laboratories, The John P. Robarts Research Institute, 100 Perth Drive, London, Ontario N6A 5K8, Canada.
authors.forename: Tamie L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Poepping
authors.forename: Hristo N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Nikolov
authors.forename: Richard N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Rankin
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Holdsworth
mesh_terms: D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler / Q000295:instrumentation*