BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality and is reported to be more common among diabetic subjects compared to non-diabetic subjects. The aim of the study was to compare the specificity and sensitivity of ankle-brachial index (ABI) measured by peripheral doppler with the colour duplex ultrasound (CDU) for diagnosis of PVD. METHOD...

OBJECTIVES to evaluate the clinical significance of the steal phenomenon following femoro-femoral bypass, and whether the addition of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) to the established examinations of the donor iliac artery can improve the prediction of patients who will develop steal. DESIGN prospective study. MATERIAL AND METHODS twenty-eight patients, aged 73 (50-81) years, scheduled for...

OBJECTIVE Recent development in minimally invasive coronary surgery prompted us to carry out prospective evaluation of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting through left anterior small thoracotomy. METHODS Between April 1996 and February 1997, 15 patients (age 32-70, 12 male) were operated on. The left internal thoracic artery (LITA) basal flow was assessed by means of transcuta...

Introduction Duplex ultrasound has become the first line of investigation for the autogenous arterio-venous hemodialysis fistula (aAVF). In recent work published by our group, we showed that duplex ultrasound was as accurate as fistulography in the assessment of fistula stenoses. The emergence of duplex ultrasound as the primary tool for examination of the aAVF is the result of better technolog...

BACKGROUND Doppler ultrasound (duplex) tests are commonly applied after carotid endarterectomy to detect possible recurrent stenosis. The appropriate frequency and the benefits are unknown. We investigated the costs and effects of various follow-up strategies to determine the optimal strategy after carotid endarterectomy. METHODS Using decision-analytic methods, a Monte Carlo Markov model was...

The results of conventional duplex scanning were compared with QCDFI. A total of 224 consecutive patients comprising 442 unilateral carotid systems were examined by conventional duplex techniques. MPSV, as determined by QCDFI, were recorded for each of the 442 carotid segments and grouped according to the previously determined degrees of stenosis. The predictive value of QCDFI was confirmed by ...

BACKGROUND Abernethy malformation is a rare congenital vascular abnormality in which the portal vein bypasses the liver and drains directly into the inferior vena cava. Diagnosis is complex and requires good quality imaging methods to identify details in systemic and portal circulation in order to establish diagnostic confirmation and treatment strategy. In this study we highlight the significa...