COLOR DOPPLER IMAGING OF THE EYE - NORMAL RANGES, REPRODUCIBILITY, AND OBSERVER VARIATION

Color Doppler ultrasonography has numerous potential applications in t he diagnosis and monitoring of many ocular disease processes. One of i ts advantages over other investigative and diagnostic tests is its saf ety and repeatability. To be able to fully assess this technique it is important to have good control data and to-know the reproducibility o f the technique for each of the retrobulbar vessels. Color Doppler ult rasonography was performed on 80 vulunteers, and normal ranges of bloo d velocity were calculated for the ophthalmic artery and for the centr al retinal artery and vein. Reduction in the peak systolic and end dia stolic velocities in the ophthalmic artery and an increase in resistiv e index in the central retinal artery and vein were noted with advanci ng age. With regard to reproducibility of the retrobulbar vessels, 15 healthy persons were chosen at random and intra- and interobserver stu dies performed. The most reliable and reproducible vessels were the op hthalmic artery and central retinal artery and vein. Greater variation was noted in the posterior ciliary vessels, whereas the superior opht halmic and vortex veins were unreliable in both detection and velocity measurement. The results provide normal ranges for future studies and demonstrate that reproducible results can be obtained for the orbital vasculature using color Doppler imaging.