Repeatability of measurement of uterine artery pulsatility index using transvaginal color Doppler

Objective To assess the repeatability of measuring the pulsatility index of the uterine arteries using transvaginal color Doppler at 23 weeks of gesta tion. Patients and methods The pulsatility index was measured in 100 women with s ingleton pregnancies attending for routine transvaginal Doppler examination of the uterine arteries at 23 weeks. To assess the repeatability of differ ent components of variability, six measurements of the uterine artery pulsa tility index were made on one of the uterine arteries in each patient. Results Six measurements of the pulsatility index were successfully measure d in all 100 patients, resulting in a total of 600 measurements. The repeat ability was unrelated to the pulsatility index. On 95% of occasions the int raobserver, interobserver and waveform tracing repeatability was less than 0.24, 0.27 and 0.14, respectively. Conclusions Measurement of the pulsatility index using transvaginal color D oppler is highly reproducible when the examination is carried out by well-t rained operators.