title: Transcranial Doppler-Based Surrogates for Cerebral Blood Flow: A Statistical Study.
abstract: It is commonly assumed that perfusion in a given cerebral territory can be inferred from Blood Flow Velocity (BFV) measurements in the corresponding stem artery. In order to test this hypothesis, we construct a cerebral blood flow (CBF) estimator based on transcranial Doppler (TCD) blood flow velocity and ten other easily available patient characteristics and clinical parameters. A total of 261 measurements were collected from 88 older patients. The estimator is based on local regression (Random Forest). Its performance is analyzed against baseline CBF from 3-D pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Patient specific CBF predictions are of poor quality (r = 0.41 and p-value = 4.5 × 10-12); the hypothesis is thus not clearly supported by evidence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hart
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Novak
authors.affiliation: Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Saunders
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Pierre A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Gremaud
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D002536:Cerebral Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial