Coronary Artery Assessment by Epicardial Pulsed Doppler Ultrasound

Abstract

An intraoperative method was developed for direct investigation of the coronary arteries using an epicardial high-frequency two-dimensional Doppler ultrasound transducer. This fingertip 7.5-MHz transducer was used in 30 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery to measure blood flow in the coronary arteries and bypass grafts. In all the patients, clear images of the coronary arteries and the bypass grafts were obtained in the beating heart, and coronary blood flow could be measured to evaluate the degree of stenosis. There were no significant differences between the measurements obtained with the Doppler transducer and a transit-time ultrasonic flowmeter of blood flow in the left internal thoracic artery graft to the left anterior descending coronary artery, indicating that the Doppler method produces accurate and reproducible measurements. This method can provide useful intraoperative information about the coronary artery system in emergency operations such as acute aortic dissection.