Measurement of volume flow with time domain and M-mode imaging: in vitro and in vivo validation studies

Color velocity imaging quantification is a commercially available technique that estimates volume flow within vessels by combining velocity data, acquired by time domain correlation, with vessel diameter measurements obtained by M-mode imaging. By integrating the velocity profile over time, quantitative volume flow calculations may be made. To investigate the accuracy of this system, we used two flow phantoms over a range of steady and pulsatile flows for in vitro evaluation, and the common carotid artery of 10 women on five consecutive occasions was insonated for in vivo assessment. In flow phantom studies, accuracy was within 8% for flows above 200 ml/min, but decreased at lower flows depending on the depth, beam-vessel angle used, and steering of the beam. At angles greater than 70 degrees, velocity errors made quantitative measurement of flow unreliable, whereas at angles less than 30 degrees, the increased error in calculating vessel diameter led to large errors of area estimation, and hence made flow measurements unreliable. For the in vivo studies on the carotid artery the intraoperator repeatability values for the three operators were 9.92% (A), 13.74% (B), and 13.24% (C). The interoperator repeatability for the group was 15.30%. This study suggests that the color velocity imaging quantification technique is an accurate and reproducible method of assessing volume flow in vessels. However, in our experience, obtaining volume flow data is more time consuming and operator dependent than traditional Doppler techniques. The color velocity imaging quantification system may be of use in monitoring conditions in which changes in volume flow in a vessel or to an organ is an important part of the disease process.