Clinical applications of Transcranial Doppler in Neurology and Neurocritical care

Abstract

Nowadays, ultrasound allows non-invasive imaging of most structures. At the brain level, the vasculature can be accessed and hemodynamics assessed. It is a safe study, does not use radiation, and can be performed at the patient's bedside, as many times as necessary, even in continuous monitoring. The limitation is that it requires an operator and about 5-20% of people have temporary bone windows that are poorly accessible due to the thickness of the bone. During the transcranial Doppler, a series of steps must be followed, after locating the expected vessels, according to the window and depth, the spectral waves are followed at least two points in each artery and the velocities of each are measured. The objective of this review was to describe the most frequent uses of transcranial Doppler in people with neurological diseases and in patients in neuro-critical care. A search with the keyword “Transcranial doppler” was carried out in PUBMED, MEDLINE and EMBASE. 13,000 publications of less than 10 years old in English and Spanish were found. The main neurological applications of transcranial Doppler were synthesized, as an auxiliary tool in the detection of endocranial pressure and brain death.