Doppler Ultrasound Automatic Mapping of Basal Cerebral Blood Flow

描述(由申请人提供)： 这项建议是为了开发新的多普勒超声技术，用于自动诊断脑基底动脉的血流。这些血管包括大脑中动脉、大脑前动脉和后交通动脉。这项技术将使普通急诊科医生能够对急性中风患者进行经颅多普勒诊断，这在目前是不可能的，因为在任何情况下使用经颅多普勒都需要专业知识。本提案的第一阶段SBIR工作成功地证明了该技术的可行性，其中特别重要的是对快速信号处理算法的演示，该算法用于在超声波束可见的角度区域内快速定位流量信号。这项技术需要快速而简单地提供指示急性中风进展中或中风风险的病理血流状况的诊断，以及在中风溶栓治疗期间选择性地将超声波应用于大脑的基底动脉。这项技术还有可能极大地增加对更广泛的健康专业人员的应用，以获得高灵敏度和特异度的重要诊断信息，而不会像当前用户在定位和维护血流信号时所经历的利用障碍。急诊科、手术室和血管实验室都代表着等待市场。第二阶段的目标是对第一阶段中展示的技术进行重大增强，包括增加绘制多个脑血管中血流的角度观察能力。拟议的工作将产生一个原型平台，以探索一种新的超声模式，从中可以做出关于上述每个市场的生产原型的决定。一种用于自动定位和快速绘制、跟踪和监测大脑基底动脉血流的设备代表着一个主要的商业市场潜力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is to develop new Doppler ultrasound technology for automatic diagnostic mapping of blood flow in the basal arteries of the brain. These vessels include the middle cerebral artery, the anterior cerebral artery, and the posterior communicating artery. This technology will enable transcranial Doppler diagnostic workup of the acute stroke patient for the rank-and-file emergency department physician, something not currently possible because of the expertise required to utilize transcranial Doppler in any setting. The Phase I SBIR work, from which this proposal moves forward, successfully demonstrated feasibility of the technology with particularly important demonstration of the fast signal processing algorithms for rapid location of flow signals in the angular territory viewable by the ultrasound beam. This technology is needed to quickly and simply provide diagnosis of pathological blood flow conditions that indicate acute stroke in progress, or the risk of stroke, as well as to selectively apply ultrasound to basal arteries of the brain during thrombolytic therapy for stroke. This technology also presents the potential for dramatically increasing the application to a much wider range of health professionals to obtain important diagnostic information with high sensitivity and specificity, and without the utilization frustrations experienced by current users both in locating and maintaining blood flow signals. The emergency department, the operating room, and the vascular laboratory all represent awaiting markets. Phase II targets significant enhancements to the technology demonstrated in Phase I, including increased angular viewing capability for mapping flow in multiple cerebral vessels. The work proposed will result in a prototype platform to explore a new ultrasound modality from which decisions can be made regarding production prototyping for each of the markets noted above. A device for automatic location of and fast mapping, tracking, and monitoring of blood flow in the basal arteries of the brain represents a major commercial market potential.