Measurement of valvular regurgitant volume by gain-corrected Doppler in a pulsatile flow model

A pulsatile flow model was utilized to emulate hemodynamic conditions downstream from a regurgitant orifice. Doppler signals from a sample volume placed across the regurgitant orifice were acquired at a variety of Doppler gains, orifice areas, regurgitant volumes, and flow velocities. Doppler-predicted regurgitant volumes correlated well with measured volumes (R=0.88, SD=3.7, mean error 5.0 cc).<>