Article Flashcards
How has TCD evolved?
It has evolved as a diagnostic, monitoring, and therapeutic tool.
What is the only diagnostic tool that can provide real time information about cerebral hemodynamics and can detect embolization to the cerebral vessels.
TCD
What is TCD?
It is a noninvasive, cost-effective, and beside tool for obtaining information regrading the collateral flow across various branches of the circle of Willis in patients with cerebrovascular disorders.
What are some advanced applications of TCD?
Helps in the detection of:
- Right-to-left shunts
- Vasomotor reactivity
- Diagnosis
- Monitoring of vasospasm in subarchnoid hemorrhage
- Supplementary test for confirmation of brain death
Who is Rune Aaslid?
Introduced the transcranial doppler for detecting blood flow in the basal intracerebral arteries.
It was a single gate spectral TCD.
Who is Mark Moehring?
He invented the transcranial power-motion Doppler (PMD) with 33 sampling gates.
What are the advantages that PMD or M-mode Doppler had?
It had the advantage of simultaneously displaying the intensity and direction of intracranial blood flow with over 6 cm or more of intracranial space.
Simplified the examination technique
What was TCD intially introduced for?
Detecting the vasospasm following a subarachnoid hemorrhage.
What is the TCD now used/known for?
TCD has emerged as a noninvasive and cost effective tool for evaulating cerebral arterial patency, detecting stenosis, collateral flow patterns, and embolization.
TCD is known to ______ the rates of arterial recanalization.
Enhance
What is the only diagnostic tool available that provides real-time information about the cerebral hemodynamics over extended periods of monitoring, as well as detects embolization to cerebral vessels?
TCD
What can be done in the setting of an acute ischemic stroke?
A combination of TCD and cervical duplex US can evaluate the cerebral hemodynamics consequences of an extracranial carotid stenosis and help in identifying the lesion amendable for interventional therapy
How does TCD compare to CTA?
TCD demonstrated 79% sensitivity and 94% specificity in detecting intracranial stenosis.
What are TCD findings complementary to?
They are complementary to CTA in:
- Detecting real time embolization
- Various collateral flow patterns due to prox. stenosis
- Detecting alternating flow signals in the posterior circulation→suggestve of the steal phenomenon.
What does alternating flow in the posteror circulation suggest?
It is suggestive of the steal phenomenon.
What are some of the important and established applications of TCD?
- Detection of right-to-left shunt
- Cerebral vasomotor reactivity
- Monitoring flow velocities for stroke prevention in sickle cell dis.
- Supplementary diagnostic test for the confirmation of brain death
Continuous TCD monitoring during systemic thrombolysis is known to do what?
Enhance the rates of clot dissolution in acute ischemic stroke.
Current diagnostic ultrasound systems are based on what?
Pulse-echo technique.
What is the difference between the transmitted and the refected sound frequencies called?
Doppler shift.
What does the doppler shift enable?
It enables the detection of tissue motion and blood flow.
The complex signals resulting from the reflections of moving RBC are broken into indivual velocities by a method called_______.
Fast Fourier Transform
What is the angle of insonation in TCD?
0°
What is the biggest hurdle in order to obtain acoustic information from the intracranial space is what?
The skull bone.
How much does the skull bone attenuate?
About 90% of the ultrasound wave.