DOPPLER SONOGRAPHY OF THE PORTAL-VEIN AND HEPATIC-ARTERY - MEASUREMENT OF A PRANDIAL EFFECT IN HEALTHY-SUBJECTS

PURPOSE: To determine if the prandial effect outweighs variability in the measurement of portal venous blood flow and hepatic arterial resis tive index. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen healthy adult volunteers f asted overnight. For eight of the subjects, two sonographers performed three determinants of portal venous blood flow and hepatic arterial r esistive index before and 30 minutes after a liquid meal (5 mg per kil ogram of body weight). In the remaining six volunteers, determinants w ere made at the same time intervals but without a meal. The sonographe rs were blinded to on-screen measurements and the subject's prandial s tatus. RESULTS: For subjects examined after the meal by sonographers A and B, respectively, portal venous blood flow increased from 144.2 to 201.7 mL/min and from 209.2 to 331.9 mL/min and hepatic arterial resi stive index increased from 0.70 to 0.77 and from 0.67 to 0.78. After r epeated-measures analysis of variance, ingestion of a meal was estimat ed to increase portal venous blood flow by 96.3 mL/min (P < .001)-a ch ange in sonographers could affect the measurement by 76.7 mL/min (P < .001)-and to increase hepatic arterial resistive index by 0.089 (P < . 001)-a change in sonographers did not affect the measurement (P > .1). CONCLUSION: The prandial effect on portal venous blood flow is only m arginally greater than the interobserver variation in the measurement. Hepatic arterial resistive index also increases after a meal, but int erobserver differences between sonographers are minimal; therefore, it is a more robust measurement.