[Medical Q&A] Can vascular ultrasound examination diagnose cerebral infarction?

Planner: Chinese Medical Association

Reviewer: Wang Yandong, Chief Physician, Tianjin University Central Hospital

Vascular ultrasound examination cannot directly determine cerebral infarction, but it can evaluate vascular lesions related to cerebral infarction.

Cerebral infarction, also known as "ischemic stroke", is a brain tissue necrosis caused by local brain tissue ischemia and hypoxia due to obstruction of brain blood supply. It is mainly related to atherosclerosis and thrombosis in the arteries supplying blood to the brain. Vascular ultrasound is a non-invasive ultrasound examination method that can use ultrasound to generate images of the vascular system in the human body and detect the health of blood vessels by analyzing the speed, direction and other characteristics of blood flow. When performing ultrasound examination on the blood vessels in the brain and neck, it can be evaluated whether the blood vessels are unobstructed, whether there is stenosis or occlusion, and whether the carotid artery causing cerebral infarction has atherosclerotic lesions, etc. However, this method can only evaluate the blood flow and structure of the blood vessels, and cannot directly display the specific pathological conditions of the brain parenchyma. In addition, since the skull has a certain obstructive effect on ultrasound, this limits the ultrasound examination of blood vessels in the brain to a certain extent, and can only be detected through specific windows (such as temporal windows, occipital windows, etc.), thus affecting the accuracy of the results. Moreover, compared with imaging technologies such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the resolution of ultrasound detection is low, and it is difficult to accurately identify smaller lesions. In summary, vascular ultrasound examination can detect abnormalities in vascular structure and hemodynamics caused by arterial stenosis or occlusion in certain parts of the body, thereby indicating the risk of cerebral infarction, but this method cannot directly diagnose cerebral infarction.