Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 14, Issue 2 91-96, Copyright © 1995 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
Color Doppler imaging of the eye: normal ranges, reproducibility, and observer variation
G. M. Baxter and T. H. Williamson
Department of Radiology, Western Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland.
Color Doppler ultrasonography has numerous potential applications in the
diagnosis and monitoring of many ocular disease processes. One of its
advantages over other investigative and diagnostic tests is its safety and
repeatability. To be able to fully assess this technique it is important to
have good control data and to know the reproducibility of the technique for
each of the retrobulbar vessels. Color Doppler ultrasonography was
performed on 80 volunteers, and normal ranges of blood velocity were
calculated for the ophthalmic artery and for the central retinal artery and
vein. Reduction in the peak systolic and end diastolic velocities in the
ophthalmic artery and an increase in resistive index in the central retinal
artery and vein were noted with advancing age. With regard to
reproducibility of the retrobulbar vessels, 15 healthy persons were chosen
at random and intra- and interobserver studies performed. The most reliable
and reproducible vessels were the ophthalmic artery and central retinal
artery and vein. Greater variation was noted in the posterior ciliary
vessels, whereas the superior ophthalmic and vortex veins were unreliable
in both detection and velocity measurement. The results provide normal
ranges for future studies and demonstrate that reproducible results can be
obtained for the orbital vasculature using color Doppler imaging.
