Objective To investigate the feasibility of measuring pulmonary blood volume (PBV) by ultrasound microbubble angiography, which may provide a feasible method for further detection of PBV changes.
Methods Ultrasound microbubble angiography was used to calculate the PBV by detecting pulmonary transit time (PTT) and heart rate-normalized pulmonary transit time (nPTT). To evaluate the consensus degree based on the intra-, inter-observer and within-day variation in order to determine the repeatability. The method was used for acute left ventricular dysfunction models to determine the feasibility as well.
Results The Bland-Atlman plots showed good intra-observer, within-day, and inter-observer consistency of measurement results. Application in acute left ventricular dysfunction models showed that, compared with the control, left heart failure models had higher PTT, nPTT and PBV (P<0.05).
Conclusion Detection of PTT/nPTT to calculate PBV by ultrasound microbubble angiography is simple and feasible, it is not easy to produce miscarriage of justice, with good intra- and inter-observer consistency of repeatability test results. The method has certain feasibility.