Abstract
Doppler ultrasonic imaging (DUI) and oculoplethysmography (OPG) were applied to evaluate the usefulness for detecting the extracranial carotid occlusive disease in 163 arteries of 96 patients.
When the results of each noninvasive technique were compared independently with the findings of conventional carotid angiography, overall diagnostic accuracy of DUI was 82.2% and that of OPG 81.6%. False positive and false negative rates were 11.3% and 33.3% in the former, and 10.4% and 37.5% in the latter, respectively. Thus, there was no difference in diagnostic accuracies between two techniques.
If the positive findings of at least one of either methods were taken into account, false negtive rates decreased by approximately 20% (from 33.3% and 37.5% to 14.6%), although overall diagnostic accuracies remained unchanged (81.6%).
Among 23 carotid arteries with stenosis more than 50%, which were thought to be hemodynamically significant, 20 arteries were diagnosed by DUI, and 22 arteries by OPG. All 23 arteries were diagnosed as having significant stenosis by combination of both techniques.
No complication was observed in patients who underwent both DUI and OPG.
DUI and OPG are easy to perform, have extreamely low risk of complication, and have high diagnostic sensitivity, especially for hemodynamically significant stenosis. The present results indicate that the combination of these two techniques are more useful for screening of patients with possible carotid occlusive disease.
