Doppler ultrasonography for benign gynecologic disorders, ectopic pregnancy, and infertility

Abstract

Doppler ultrasound has the potential to study patterns of pelvic flow and hence identify functional changes. The availability of pulsed Doppler instruments has made it possible to sample the signals at a chosen depth and thus to direct flow in any selected deep pelvic vessel. Transvaginal color Doppler is a system that uses pulsed Doppler that performs flow analysis at multiple points along each scan line of echo data. Flow information is then color-coded and displayed on the entire corresponding anatomical image. The main advantage of this color Doppler system is rapid and definitive determination of the position of the small vessel, accuracy of the measurements, and precise indication of flow direction and velocity. After simultaneous visualization of morphological and blood flow information, a pulsed Doppler gate is placed over the area of interests to provide flow velocity waveforms which may be analyzed in a conventional fashion. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.