The following section briefly reports the scientific work behind the VIPER project for fluid therapy and dehydration assessment. For further details and collaborations, please contact us.
Patent InformationThe most common non-invasive approach in hospital wards for evaluating hydration status and dehydration risk is through ultrasound monitoring of the inferior vena cava and estimating the Caval Index. The physician selects a section of the vein on the longitudinal ultrasound image. This section must be one of the rays emitted by the ultrasound machine. The minimum and maximum diameter (D) of the vein are measured to calculate the Caval Index for fluid therapy management:
This process is cumbersome and imprecise for accurate dehydration assessment. It requires many operator steps and makes significant approximations since it does not account for vein geometry or the fact that the ray does not move solidly with the vessel. Moreover, it has strong inter- and intra-operator variability. Consequently, operators often abandon this method, classifying patients simply as "Full" or "Empty," obtaining only a qualitative measurement from the ultrasound, which is non-reportable and represents a significant loss of information for proper fluid therapy management.
Method and apparatus to characterize non-invasively
images containing venous blood vessels for improved fluid therapy management
International Publication Number: WO 2018/134726 A1
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