In the hands of an experienced sonographer, a portable diagnostic ultrasound (US) allows for a quick and inexpensive diagnosis of vascular trauma in the field. However, trained sonographers are usually not available at trauma settings, such as in the battlefield. Recent studies by Luo 2007 [1] quantified ultrasound signatures of bleeding at the sites of vessel puncture, which can be used in automated algorithms for ultrasound diagnosis of suspected bleeding sites. However, trauma patients often have large areas of injury requiring extensive scanning to find the bleeding site. An algorithm that can first assess a vascular tree and localize suspicious branches for further examination or therapy would be useful. This study was focused on the upper extremity vascular tree. Specific goals of this study were to 1) demonstrate a physics-based model to characterize normal blood flow, and 2) evaluate its ability to detect vascular abnormalities by looking for flows that deviate from the model.

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