Volume flow measurement using Doppler and grey-scale decorrelation.

A technique for volumetric blood flow measurement was developed by combining standard Doppler measurements with grey-scale decorrelation. Steered Doppler is used to determine the in-plane velocities, which are then used to extract the out-of-plane velocities from the temporal A-line decorrelation. As a result, a three-dimensional (3-D) vector flow field can be computed over the imaging plane using a single clinical transducer without knowledge of the vessel orientation. Volume flow is computed by integrating the out-of-plane flow over the vessel cross-section. The algorithm was tested using a scattering-enhanced fluid in a 6.4-mm diameter dialysis tubing. For a wide range of transducer angles, the volume flow was accurately measured to within 28% in these preliminary tests.