[Applications of transcranial Doppler ultrasound and color-coded intracranial duplex ultrasound in patients with stenoses of the extracranial brain arteries].

One hundred and fifty-eight patients (99 men and 59 women) aged 20 to 76 years, all with extracranial cerebral artery stenoses, were submitted to both transcranial Doppler sonography and color-coded intracranial duplex sonography in order to establish whether there were any differences between the two methods in their assessment of the degree of severity of stenosis of the internal carotid artery and the resulting flow rate in the middle cerebral arteries. The degree of stenosis in the carotids was investigated with color duplex sonography and angiographically. Il emerged that transcranial Doppler sonography permitted reliable conclusions as to the severity of the carotid stenosis only in the case of complete occlusion. In contrast, the systolic flow rate in the trunk of the middle cerebral artery as measured by means of color intracranial duplex sonography consistently decreased with increasing severity of the stenosis. In this group of patients, color duplex sonography had clear advantages over angiography in the assessment of stenoses of the extracranial vessels supplying the brain. In particular, early stages of arteriosclerosis were detected more readily.