Measuring pulmonary blood pressure using transthoracic pulmonary doppler ultrasound

摘要

Operation of a patient's heart or lungs may be analyzed by transmitting ultrasound energy into the patient's lung, and detecting Doppler shifts of reflected ultrasound induced by moving borders between blood vessels in the lung and air filled alveoli that surround the blood vessels. Movement of the border is caused by pressure waves in the blood vessels that result in changes in diameter of those blood vessels. The detected Doppler shifts are used to obtain power and velocity data at each of a plurality of different air pressure levels, and the pulmonary blood pressure of the patient is then estimated based on the obtained data.

主权项

1. A method of estimating a pulmonary blood pressure of a patient, comprising the steps of:
transmitting, from a probe or sensor positioned externally on the patient's chest, ultrasound energy transthoracicly into at least one of the patient's lungs; receiving, using the probe or sensor, ultrasound reflections from the at least one of the patient's lungs; sequentially obtaining, by Doppler processing of the received ultrasound reflections, power and velocity data from moving borders between soft tissue and alveoli in the at least one of the patient's lungs at each of a plurality of different air pressure levels; and calculating the pulmonary blood pressure of the patient based on the power and velocity data from the moving borders between soft tissue and alveoli obtained in the obtaining step.