DOPPLER ULTRASOUND

Lee W. Goldman Hartford Hospital

The Doppler Effect

The Doppler Shift

fD = (V1 +V2) fS /C
where: fD = Doppler shift fS = emitted frequency V1 = velocity of emitter V2 = velocity of listener C = velocity of sound

Doppler Techniques
Continuous Wave (CW) Doppler
accurate, no aliasing but not depth discrimination

Pulsed Doppler
Sacrifices accuracy for depth discrimination

Duplex Doppler
One line of Pulsed Doppler on B-mode display

Multigated Doppler:
Parallelprocessed sample volumes at several depths

Color Flow: 2D flow information

Cant measure doppler shift: uses other indicators

Continuous Wave (CW) Doppler

Continuous Wave (CW) Doppler

Doppler Shift
fD = 2Vcos() fS/C where: = angle of insonation of vessel V = velocity of erythrocytes o Example: fS = 5 MHz V = 35 cm/sec = 45
fD = (2)(5x106 /sec)(0.35 m/sec)(0.707) 1540 m/sec fD = 1600 Hz = 1.6 kHz

Continuous Wave Doppler

Uses two transducers: 1 transmit, 1 receive Advantages:
Inexpensive Narrow spectrum ---> high measurement accuracy No aliasing allows high velocity measurement

Drawbacks:
Spectral broadening due to large sample volume Lack of depth selectivity Errors due to motion within path of CW US beam

Pulsed Doppler
Adds depth discrimination Longer pulse length narrow frequency band: 15-20 cycles (7-10 mm resolution) typical Samples doppler shift at PRF. 64-128 samples needed for accurate estimation. Max measurable shift=PRF/2 Larger shifts are aliased Multigating: parallel channels process different depth ranges

Aliasing

Duplex Doppler

Pulsed Doppler Aliasing

Pulsed Doppler Aliasing

Pulsed Doppler Aliasing

Reducing Pulsed Doppler Aliasing

Increase PRF: but usually limited by echo time Reduce Depth: to allow use of higher PRF Increase angle: reduce accuracy of velocity calc Reduce Transducer Frequency: but will reduce depth resolution for same frequency bandwidth Change Baseline: assumes smaller doppler shifts are aliased (reassigns them to higher velocities) Switch to CW

Duplex Doppler

Duplex Doppler
Pulsed Doppler line superimposed on B-mode image. Sample volume selected by cursor Modern units: phased or linear arrays
can use different frequencies for B-mode & doppler Can maintain acceptable B-mode frame rate (early duplex units froze b-mode image)

Vessel angle measured from B-mode image allows velocity (cm/sec) estimate from fD. Error possible if vessel not entirely within plane Profile from multiple gates covering lumen

2D Color Flow Imaging

Next logical step: Duplex lines over entire image Insufficient time to measure fD over all A-lines:
need >10 ms (64-128 samples) to estimate doppler shift for 1 line. No time for 128 lines + B mode also

Fundamentally different approach: Estimators Assume each blood sample has unique fingerprint (speckle pattern); detect motion from correlation:
Auto-correlation: compares consecutive samples Cross-correlation: compares adjacent doppler line Acceptable estimates from 4-12 samples

Color Doppler: Autocorrelation

Color Flow Limitations

Tissue motion: large echoes from slow-moving tissue can overwhelm smaller echoes from blood Qualitative Velocity Estimates: true velocity estimates and velocity profiles are not possible. Most units allow switch to Duplex for velocity Aliasing: due to generally lower PRF, aliasing is more severe; however, color-coding usually allows this effect to be easily recognized