Diagnostic Advances
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Jul 26, 2016; 8(7): 383-400
Published online Jul 26, 2016. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v8.i7.383
Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography: From methodology to major clinical applications
Antonello D’Andrea, Marianna Conte, Massimo Cavallaro, Raffaella Scarafile, Lucia Riegler, Rosangela Cocchia, Enrica Pezzullo, Andreina Carbone, Francesco Natale, Giuseppe Santoro, Pio Caso, Maria Giovanna Russo, Eduardo Bossone, Raffaele Calabrò
Antonello D’Andrea, Marianna Conte, Massimo Cavallaro, Raffaella Scarafile, Lucia Riegler, Rosangela Cocchia, Enrica Pezzullo, Andreina Carbone, Francesco Natale, Giuseppe Santoro, Pio Caso, Maria Giovanna Russo, Raffaele Calabrò, Integrated Diagnostic Cardiology, Second University of Naples, AORN “dei Colli”, Monaldi Hospital, 80121 Naples, Italy
Eduardo Bossone, Department of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, University Hospital, San Giovanni di Dio, 84131 Salerno, Italy
Author contributions: D’Andrea A, Conte M and Cavallaro M designed research and wrote the paper; Scarafile R, Riegler L, Cocchia R, Pezzullo E, Carbone A, Natale F and Santoro G performed research; Caso P, Russo MG, Bossone E and Calabrò R reviewed the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no relevant conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Antonello D’Andrea, MD, PhD, Chair of Cardiology, Integrated Diagnostic Cardiology, Second University of Naples, AORN “dei Colli”, Monaldi Hospital, Corso Vittorio Emanuele 121A, 80121 Naples, Italy. antonellodandrea@libero.it
Telephone: +39-081-7062355 Fax: +39-081-7064234
Received: March 6, 2016
Peer-review started: March 7, 2016
First decision: April 15, 2016
Revised: April 29, 2016
Accepted: May 17, 2016
Article in press: May 27, 2016
Published online: July 26, 2016
Processing time: 134 Days and 13.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Non-invasive Doppler ultrasonographic study of cerebral arteries [transcranial Doppler (TCD)] has been extensively applied on both outpatient and inpatient settings. Nowadays the most widespread indication for TCD in outpatient setting is the research of right to left shunting, responsable of so called “paradoxical embolism”, most often due to a patency of foramen ovale which is responsable of the majority of cases of cryptogenic stroke occuring in patients younger than 55 years old. In addition TCD has found many useful applications in neurocritical care practice. It is useful on both adults and children for day-to-day bedside assessment of critical conditions including vasospasm in acute subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, brain stem death.