Contrast enhanced ultrasound to quantify cerebral perfusion

Acute brain injury leads to primary and secondary damage. Contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) could detect a change in flow early to prevent secondary damage, but has a high variability. We built an in vitro set-up to enable investigation of factors that influence the repeatability of CEUS. The set-up simulates the pathway from peripheral microbubble injection, via the heart, internal carotid artery (ICA) and middle cerebral artery (MCA) towards the cerebral microcirculation (dialysis filter). The validity and performance was studied by adapting pressures and flows and performing ultrasound (US) measurements. In this set-up we investigated the influence of flow and using the ICA as a reference for the cerebral circulation on repeatability and if perfusion parameters could differentiate between flows. Dual US measurements during different flows were performed.