IMPORTANCE OF TECHNICAL VARIABLES FOR QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENTS BY COLOR DOPPLER IMAGING

Color Doppler imaging provides information on spatial distribution of blood flow and is widely used to evaluate valvular regurgitation and shunt lesions. Estimates of size and shape of flow areas have been suggested to quantify these disorders, particularly in valvular regurgitation, 1,2 where such measurements of jet dimensions are widely used. Although the influence of technical variables-such as ultrasound gain setting and transducer frequency-on color jet areas has been reported,3-5 this fact is frequently neglected. We studied the magnitude of jet area changes with variation of sample volume size, low-velocity filter, gain setting, sector angle and postprocessing to evaluate their importance for quantitative color Doppler estimates. © 1991.