[Noninvasive study of intracerebral circulation in premature and newborn infants with pulsed Doppler sonography. Principles, measuring technics, reference values]

Abstract

This paper describes our method to evaluate neonatal cerebral circulation in a semiquantitative way by transfontanellar pulsed Doppler ultrasonography. We defined three arterial (internal carotid, basilar, and anterior cerebral artery) and three venous (internal cerebral and internal jugular vein; sinus rectus) sites for measurement of peak systolic, end diastolic, and mean velocity. Reference values, intraindividual and interindividual variation are calculated for infants between 750 and 4000 g body weight. Among all possible measurements follow up of mean velocity of the internal carotid artery in an individual infant is most reliable.