Effect of skull thickness on quantitative transcranial Doppler measurements

抄録

Evaluation of intracranial hemodynamics by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (TCD) has the problem of variation in skull thickness. Using an adult dog, we studied the effect of skull thickness on the cerebral blood flow measured with TCD through the exposed temporal bone of three different thicknesses. While mean flow velocity (MFV) and pulsatility index (PI) values were not influenced by skull thickness at a fixed sampling depth, the S/N ratio was greatly influenced by MFV and PI, while the sampling depth had a small effect on MFV and a large effect on PI. These results should be considered when assessing intracranial hemodynamics by TCD.