USE OF POWER DOPPLER IN PEDIATRIC NEUROSONOGRAPHY - A PICTORIAL ESSAY

In pediatric neurosonography, conventional color Doppler imaging has b een the primary adjunct to routine gray-scale imaging. Power Doppler s onography is a relatively recent development that does not have the li mitations of conventional color Doppler ultrasound. The power Doppler technique measures the energy of moving red blood cells instead of the velocity and direction of flow. Advantages of this technique include increased sensitivity for identifying flow in slow-flow states, more c omplete evaluation of a vessel, and more accurate evaluation of the co urse of the vessel. Power Doppler sonography is helpful in evaluation of the neonatal brain in a variety of clinical situations: identifying the exact locations of extraaxial fluid collections, differentiating intraventricular clot from normal choroid plexus, detecting intraventr icular hemorrhage, and demonstrating asymmetries in cerebral perfusion . However, in certain difficult cases, use of both conventional color Doppler sonography and power Doppler sonography produces increased dia gnostic accuracy because these techniques furnish complementary inform ation.