Validation of a novel vector method for blood peak velocity detection in an anthropomorphic phantom

The peak blood velocity is a parameter of high medical interest, which is used, for example, in the determination of carotid stenosis grade. The standard approach, which typically exploits the maximum frequency detectable in the Doppler spectrum, is prone to two main sources of errors: the ambiguity of the Doppler angle and the spectral broadening. A novel method, based on a mathematical model, was recently introduced and shown to be unaffected by the spectral broadening. The method directly measures the maximum velocity component in a large sample volume that includes all the vessel section. Furthermore, its combination with a vector Doppler approach allows automatically correcting for the angle. This technique produced good results when verified in straight tubes, but tests in a more realistic configuration are necessary for an accurate validation. In this work, the proposed technique is compared against 2 already validated methods by investigating the common and internal branches of an anthropomorphic phantom, which mimics a carotid bifurcation with a 50% stenosis on the internal artery.