Sonography of the hepatic vascular system.

The possibility of blood-flow analysis with Doppler techniques is a valuable addition to B-mode real-time scanning and enhances the role of sonography as the primary noninvasive imaging method for the liver and its vessels. Duplex sonography has already proved useful for qualitative assessment of hepatic blood flow in clinical practice. Preliminary experience with color Doppler flow imaging suggests that this technique may make assessment of the presence and direction of blood flow in intra- and perihepatic vessels easier and less time-consuming.