Middle Cerebral Artery Blood Flows by Combining TCD Velocities and MRA Diameters: In Vitro and In Vivo Validations

Abstract Non-invasive transcranial Doppler (TCD) is widely used for blood velocity (BV, cm/sec) measurements in the human middle cerebral artery (MCA). MCABV measurements are accepted as linear with MCA blood flow (MCABF). Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) provides measurements of MCA lumen diameters that can be combined with TCD MCABV to calculate MCABF (mL/min). We tested the precision and accuracy of this method against a flow phantom and in vivo proximal internal carotid artery blood flow (ICABF). In vitro precision (repeated measures) and accuracy (vs. time collection) gave correlations coefficients of 0.97 and 0.98, respectively (both p