RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To improve the technique for hepatic blood flow examination, with the objective of investigating the role for Doppler flowmetry of the liver in monitoring pregnant females with pre-eclampsia. METHODS: Two physicians independently examined a group of 50 healthy pregnant females. The main difference in the proposed technique is the measurement of the vessel cross-sectional area and the adjustment of the Doppler samples according to the diameter of each vessel. The portal vein was studied by using two approaches: in the epigastrium, to measure the diameter, and in the intercostal, for Doppler sample collection. The common hepatic artery was studied by using the epigastric approach. The average of three measurements of each vessel, in each subject, with intrarater and interrater agreements, was compared. RESULTS: The intraclass correlation coefficient for the intrarater flow measurements of the hepatic artery and portal vein ranged from 0.98 to 0.99 (p < 0.0001). The intraclass correlation coefficients for the interrater flow measurements was 0.93 for the flow of the portal vein (p < 0.0001), 0.94 for the flow of the hepatic artery (p < 0.0001) and 0.96 for the measurement of the portal vein diameter (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The new technique for evaluation of blood flow to the liver displayed excellent reproducibility, possibly because of the adjustment of the Doppler samples according to the diameter of each vessel. Advances in knowledge: This approach will add reliability to the method. It opens a vast field of investigation given the importance of liver vascular lesions in pre-eclampsia.