The Influence of a Small Stenosis in the Carotid Artery Bulb on Adjacent Axial Velocity Profiles

Abstract

The detection of atherosclerotic lesions at an early stage of disease, which means only minimal narrowing of the artery lumen, is important to obtain more insight into the natural course of the disease. An area of special importance is the internal carotid circulation, where emboli generated by these lesions can cause cerebral disturbances like transient ischemic attacks. In the neck the common carotid artery divides into the external and internal carotid arteries. The latter supplies the brain with blood and generally shows a dilatation at its offspring: the carotid artery bulb. Since atherosclerotic lesions are often located proximally in this bulb, this site in the internal carotid artery has been subject to investigation to evaluate whether there is a relation between these lesions and the local flow velocity pattern so that they could be diagnosed by detecting the flow velocity disturbances. This possibility has became pertinent because multigate pulsed Doppler systems have been developed to measure velocity profiles with high spatial and temporal resolution in man (Hoeks et al,1981).