During the last 15 years we have developed and applied several types of catheter-mounted ultrasonic Doppler transducers for sensing coronary blood flow in man. Validation studies in the laboratory and in animals have shown that these catheters can accurately measure velocity from a small sample volume located ahead of the catheter tip. The Doppler transducers have been miniaturized enough to be mounted on the tip of a balloon angioplasty catheter without compromising any of the normal functions of the catheter. Good quality, high fidelity velocity signals have been recorded from many sites within the coronary circulation of patients during coronary arteriography and during balloon angioplasty.

Date Published: 8 April 1988
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 0904, Microsensors and Catheter-Based Imaging Technology, (8 April 1988); doi: 10.1117/12.945225

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0904:
Microsensors and Catheter-Based Imaging Technology
Alan I. West, Editor(s)