The application of physical principles to the non-invasive assessment of vascular diseases — A challenge for biomedical engineers

The application of physical principles has led to the development of several methods for non-invasively assessing vascular diseases. The methods rely on: the detection of blood flow; the measurement of changes in volume of a body segment caused by varying the blood flow into or out of that segment; and the imaging of blood vessels. This paper describes some of these methods and their application to the assessment of arterial and venous disease. Some of the limitations of existing techniques are described and it is suggested that their further development in order to improve the accuracy and ease of use of the methods presents an exciting challenge for biomedical engineers.