Blood Speckle Imaging Compared with Conventional Doppler Ultrasound for Transvalvular Pressure Drop Estimation in an Aortic Flow Phantom

Background Transvalvular pressure drops are assessed using Doppler echocardiography for the diagnosis of heart valve disease. However, this method is highly user-dependent and may overestimate transvalvular pressure drops by up to 54%. This work aimed to assess transvalvular pressure drops using velocity fields derived from blood speckle imaging (BSI), as a potential alternative to Doppler. Methods A silicone 3D-printed aortic valve model, segmented from a healthy CT scan, was placed within a silicone tube. A CardioFlow 5000MR flow pump was used to circulate blood mimicking fluid to create eight different stenotic conditions (transvalvular flow velocities between 1.6 and 2.4 m/s and pressure drops between 9.7 and 22.7 mmHg). Eight PendoTech pressure sensors were embedded along the tube wall to record ground-truth pressures (10 KHz). The Bernoulli equation with measured probe angle correction was used to estimate pressure drop from maximum velocity values acquired across the valve using Doppler and BSI with a GE Vivid E95 ultrasound machine and 6S-D cardiac phased array transducer. Results There were no significant differences between pressure drops estimated by Doppler, BSI and ground-truth at the lowest stenotic condition (10.4 ± 1.76, 10.3 ± 1.63 vs. 10.7 ± 1.12 mmHg, respectively; p>0.05). Significant differences were observed between the pressure drops estimated by the three methods at the greatest stenotic condition (26.4 ± 1.52, 14.5 ± 2.14 vs. 20.1 ± 1.78 mmHg for Doppler, BSI and ground-truth, respectively; p<0.05). Across all conditions, Doppler overestimated pressure drop (Bias = 3.54 mmHg), while BSI underestimated pressure drop (Bias = -3.68 mmHg). Conclusions BSI accurately estimated pressure drops only up to 10.7 mmHg in controlled phantom conditions of low stenotic burden. Although BSI offers a number of theoretical advantages to conventional Doppler echocardiography, further refinements and clinical studies are required with BSI before it can be used to improve transvalvular pressure drop estimation in the clinical evaluation of aortic stenosis.