TRANSCRANIAL DOPPLER SIMULATOR FOR TRAINING AND ASSESSMENT

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We aim to develop a transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound simulator on a physical mannequin for realistic medical training and professional competence testing. The Specific Aims of the project are: 1. Develop a prototype TCD simulator. The anatomy of the cerebrovascular system (CVS) will be reconstructed in three dimensional (3D) from a patient’s computed tomography angiogram (CTA). The blood flow velocity at points within the CVS will be defined using computational flow modeling and used to generate the Doppler spectral waveform simulation for the TCD. 2. Develop a prototype transcranial color Doppler simulator by generating 2D B- mode ultrasound images from the CTA. Color Doppler images will be generated in real time from the flow model as in our vascular Doppler simulator. 3. Verify the accuracy of the simulation by comparing blood flow velocity measured from the simulator waveforms with the true velocities in the 3D models. We will verify the clinical realism of the simulation by comparing spectral Doppler waveforms measured on the simulator with patient Doppler spectral waveforms. This research will benefit health care by expanding patient access to TCD, a recommended diagnostic procedure, by helping to increase the number of providers trained to perform TCD. Wider use of evidence based applications of TCD will help avoid invasive and more expensive alternative diagnostic tests. This research is applicable both to underserved patients – those with sickle cell disease -- and to large patient populations because stroke is the fifth leading cause of death for Americans and TCD has critical applications in the management of ischemic as well as hemorrhagic strokes.