Quantification of pulmonary flow in systemic-to-pulmonary shunts

摘要

Systemic-to-pulmonary shunts are used in pediatric cardiac surgery to improve blood oxygenation. One of the commonest is the modified Blalock-Taussig shunt. In vivo Doppler velocity tracings can be used to evaluate the flow rate in the shunt. Although the use of Doppler ultrasonography to quantify the volumetric flow has been validated both in clinical and experimental studies, many theoretical sources of error are linked with these indirect measurements (Marshall and Weyman, 1994).