In vitro assessment of combined Doppler ultrasound and CFD modeling in arterial blood flow quantification

Spatiotemporal quantification of the blood flow in the human vasculature has been greatly aided with the non-invasive proposition offered by Doppler ultrasound. However, relatively large deviation of the blood flow measurement from the actual value is expected, owing to a number of contributing factors. The research work expounded here attempts to ameliorate the accuracy of the blood flow output quantification by combining the Doppler measurement with the computational fluid dynamics modeling based on Navier-Stokes equation. In vitro assessment of the integrated approach was carried out with custom made phantom and probe positioning Mechatronic system. Analysis of the experimental results showed that, compared to the stand alone Doppler ultrasound measurement, the integrated model gives better accuracy in quantifying the volume flow rate. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.