A Comparison of Doppler Ultrasonic Waveforms Processed by Zero Crossing and Spectrographic Techniques in the Diagnosis of Peripheral Arterial Disease

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Abstract
A number of the commonly used parameters derived from Doppler ultrasonic waveforms are compared with the results of arteriography. Patients (25) were examined within 2 wk of arteriography ordered for the assessment of their peripheral arterial disease. Processing of the Doppler ultrasound signals was carried out using both zero crossing and spectrographic techniques. The standard, commercially available Doppler blood flowmeter uses continuous wave ultrasound and has an output proportional to blood velocity which uses the zero crossing technique to measure the Doppler frequency. This method has serious shortcomings. Spectral analysis is becoming more popular for the detailed analysis of blood velocity waveforms. On-line use of the latter method requires very expensive equipment. A comparison is presented here using an off-line digital method to obtain the spectrogram of Doppler sound (sonogram).