Quantitative Ascending Aortic Doppler Blood Velocity in Normal Human Subjects

We have developed digital, Apple II microcomputer-based methods for the numerical analysis of pulsed, range-gated, ultrasonic Doppler blood velocity signals. These methods were then used to analyse Doppler data recorded every 5 ms from the ascending aorta via the suprasternal notch in normal subjects ranging in age from 3 to 62 years. Normal values for peak velocity, the integral of velocity over the time of systole, and the rate of change of velocity in early ejection are reported. It was found that, after an initial step increase, the velocity of blood flow in early ejection increased in a linear manner in more than two thirds of the individual beats analysed. The time for which the linear acceleration in the aorta was constant (circa 50 ms) was unrelated to the age or size of the subject.