Pulsatile Blood Flow Measurements with the Aid of 3-D Reconstructions From Dynamic Angiographic Recordings

Flow measurements in individual vessels may be of value in a variety of circumstances. 1.) Total organ flow can be derived from flow in a vessel when there is a single inflow artery or outflow vein in an organ. 2.) The commonest type of vascular disease is atherosclerosis, which tends to affect larger vessels. It may be advantageous to measure flow or change in flow in the diseased vessel (s), rather than attempt to measure tissue flow in its region of supply of the vessel, which may be spatially irregular and hard to define when using tissue flow measurement techniques. Furthermore, several arteries may potentially supply one territory and vessel flow measurement may allow estimation of the relative contribution of particular vessels. 3.) Similarly, measurement of flow in bypass grafts or natural anastomoses can be of particular clinical importance. 4.) Along an unbranched vessel (where volume flow must remain constant) velocity flow is inversely proportional to vessel cross sectional area. Moreover, blood flow velocity normally changes little at branches and large velocity changes often indicate abnormal haemodynamics. Thus, velocity flow (e.g. as provided semi-quantitatively by Doppler methods) may give valuable indirect information about vessel geometry.