A Case Study on the Utility of Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound in Acute Stroke Evaluation

Abstract

The use of transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound in the acute stage of large vessel occlusion diagnosis has, for a number of reasons, not seen widespread adoption. The high temporal fidelity of TCD provides information about the neurovasculature that neurological tests and standard computed tomography (CT) imaging cannot. This presents an opportunity in the early evaluation of patients that can help clinicians make informed decisions. The case study presented here illustrates the complementary information that TCD can provide in a situation where other available tests failed to fully elucidate the underlying pathology.

A Review of the use of Transcranial Doppler Waveform Morphology for Acute Stroke Assessment

“…VCI condenses the information captured by TIBI grading into a single continuous metric [30]. A recent case study of the utility of TCD in assessment of LVO reported that, after CTA had indicated occlusion, VCI was the only non-angiographic assessment tool used that was also indicative of LVO [31]. The ability to quantify the curvature of a TCD waveform may have implications for a wide variety of hemodynamic pathologies outside of LVO, but additional studies are needed.…”