Quantitative measurement of portal blood flow in patients with chronic liver disease using an ultrasonic Duplex system consisting of a pulsed Doppler flowmeter and B-mode electroscanner.

Portal blood flow (PBF) can be measured quantitatively using a B-mode combined pulsed Doppler (BCD) system. This system combines a real time B-mode linear type electroscanner and a pulsed Doppler (D-mode) flowmeter. Since both modes are displayed in realtime, Doppler blood flow signals can be retrieved at will from any depth. The blood flow velocity determined by the Doppler spectrogram and the vascular cross-sectional area measured from the B-mode tomographic image enables the quantitative calculation of blood flow volume. Using this system, PBF was measured quantitatively in 88 healthy adults, 54 patients with chronic hepatitis, 65 with cirrhosis of the liver, 27 with primary hepatoma and 12 with idiopathic portal hypertension (IPH). Results of PBF volume measurement were as follows: 889 +/- 284 ml/min (mean +/- S.D.) for healthy adults, 851 +/- 237 ml/min for patients with chronic hepatitis, 870 +/- 289 ml/min for cirrhosis of the liver, 966 +/- 375 ml/min for primary hepatoma and 1,047 +/- 381 ml/min for IPH. These preliminary results demonstrated that this ultrasonic Duplex system is clinically useful to determine the quantitative amount of PBF.