Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 18, Issue 2 125-133, Copyright © 1999 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
Color Doppler waveforms of maternal cervical internal carotid arteries in normotensive and preeclamptic gravidas
J. H. Hung, H. T. Ng, Y. P. Pan, M. J. Yang and L. P. Shu
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, National Yang-Ming University, School of Medicine, Taiwan.
The objective of this study was to investigate and determine fitted
percentiles of blood flow resistance of cervical internal carotid arteries
in normal pregnancies from gestational weeks 20 to 42 and to compare the
resistance indices and mean velocities of the these arteries in
normotensive and preeclamptic gravidas. A duplex color apparatus with
pulsed Doppler ultrasound scanner (7.5 MHz) was used to determine the
resistance index and mean velocity values of maternal cervical internal
carotid arteries in 310 healthy singleton gravidas (group 1) and 74
singleton preeclamptic gravidas (group 2). The resistance index and mean
velocity values of the maternal cervical internal carotid arteries decrease
as the gestational age increases in normal gravidas, whereas in
preeclamptic pregnancies these values are no different from those in normal
gravidas during the second half of the gestational period.
