Blood velocity measurement in healthy and diseased carotid arteries by vector Doppler techniques

Vector Doppler (VD) methods are increasingly attractive for the capability of providing angle-independent blood velocity measurements. This may be particularly important in carotid artery peak systolic velocity (PSV) measurements, which are widely used for stenosis assessments. Here, two recently introduced VD techniques have been compared to the classic spectral Doppler approach through 37 PSV measurements in common carotid arteries (CCAs) and internal carotid arteries (ICAs) of healthy volunteers and of patients with different degrees of stenosis. The PSVs measured by the two VD techniques were very close to each other for both CCAs and ICAs (0.83 slope coefficient and 7 cm/s intercept value, according to the linear regression analysis). Comparing any of the two VD techniques to the classic method provided a (0.42/0.46) regression coefficient with a (14/20) cm/s intercept value. The high correlation obtained with the two VD techniques supports their suitability to perform accurate PSV measurements in carotid arteries.