title: Transcranial duplex sonography for monitoring circle of Willis artery occlusion in a rat embolic stroke model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hemodynamic monitoring of circle of Willis arteries during clot embolization in experimental embolic stroke models (ES) is of major importance to assess their reproducibility and to test new recanalization strategies. We sought to assess the potential of transcranial duplex sonography (TDS) in comparison with laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) to monitor the time of recanalization after occlusion of the right distal intracranial internal carotid artery (rICA) and to predict infarct volume at 24h after ischemia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty nine male Sprague-Dawley rats were submitted to ES. Right and left ICA, posterior cerebral arteries, and basilar trunk (BT) were monitored by TDS and regional cerebral blood flow was monitored by LDF at baseline, 1, 4 and 24h after the ES onset. Infarct volume was measured at 24h after stroke.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the 25 rats, 3 died during surgery, 5 did not show any significant brain infarct (failure of the stroke model) and absence of occlusion of the rICA was detected in all 5 rats by TDS at 1h whereas only 4 of 5 were detected by LDF. Among the remaining 17 rats, the recanalization time of the occluded rICA assessed by TDS correlated with the infarct volume at 24h, r=0.70, P=0.0013 by contrast to results with LDF, r=0.11, P=0.55.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although both TDS and LDF can be used for in vivo assessment of occlusion in a rat ES model, TDS was more reliable as it allowed more accurate monitoring of arterial recanalization, and prediction of infarct volume.
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U698, Hopital X-Bichat, Universite Denis Diderot, Paris 7, Paris, France. bertrand.lapergue@gmail.com
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lapergue
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Deroide
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pocard
authors.forename: Jean-Baptiste
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Michel
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Meilhac
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bonnin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002536:Cerebral Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D002941:Circle of Willis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D020766:Intracranial Embolism / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020521:Stroke / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D018616:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Duplex / Q000379:methods*; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial / Q000379:methods*