New method of evaluating gastric mucosal blood flow by ultrasound.
OBJECTIVE
Evaluation of gastrointestinal blood flow is important. However, a non-invasive measurement method has not yet been established. The aim of this study was to compare measurement of normal gastric mucosal blood flow by advanced dynamic flow (ADF) flash echo imaging (FEI) with intravenous Levovist with measurement by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) to clarify the usefulness of ADF-FEI and thereby consider its feasibility as a non-invasive gastric mucosal blood flow measurement method.


METHODS
Measurements were obtained in 25 beagle dogs (8-month-old males, body-weight, 10.6+/-1.3 kg, mean+/-SD). After insertion of a gastrointestinal endoscope, gastric mucosal blood flow at the greater curvature of the corpus was measured by LDF, and images of gastric mucosal blood flow were obtained by ADF-FEI (frequency; 4.7 MHz) with intravenous injection of Levovist (30 mg/kg). ADF-FEI images were transferred to a personal computer. A region of interest was set on the mucosa of the greater curvature of the corpus, and a time intensity curve (TIC) was plotted from the measured echo intensities. The area under the curve (AUC) calculated from the TIC and the median flow determined by LDF were analyzed and compared.


RESULTS
Evaluation of normal gastric mucosal blood flow by ADF-FEI was possible in all animals. There was a strong, significant correlation between gastric mucosal blood flow measured by LDF and the AUC obtained by ADF-FEI (r=0.869, p<0.0001).


CONCLUSIONS
Gastric mucosal blood flow can be accurately measured by ADF-FEI with intravenous Levovist injection.
Mitsuoka
Yutaka
Y
Department of Medicine and Molecular Science, Division of Frontier Medical Science, Programs for Biomedical Research, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-2-3 Kasumi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima, Japan.
Hata
Jiro
J
Haruma
Ken
K
Manabe
Noriaki
N
Tanaka
Shinji
S
Chayama
Kazuaki
K
D000818:Animals; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D003287:Contrast Media; D004285:Dogs; D005753:Gastric Mucosa / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D017078:Laser-Doppler Flowmetry; D008297:Male; D011134:Polysaccharides; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler / Q000379:methods
D003287:Contrast Media; D011134:Polysaccharides; C059891:SHU 508