Reproducibility of duplex ultrasonography and air plethysmography used for the evaluation of chronic venous insufficiency.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the reproducibility of measurements on duplex ultrasonography (DU) and air plethysmography (APG) in subjects with post-thrombotic syndrome.

Methods: Duplex ultrasonography and APG were used to measure indices of lower limb venous reflux in 15 limbs with a history of deep vein thrombosis and evidence of venous insufficiency as diagnosed by ultrasonography. Three limbs were in class 0; 4 were in classes 1 to 3; and 8 were in classes 4 to 6, according to clinical, etiologic, anatomic, and pathophysiologic clinical classification. Duplex ultrasonography was performed 3 times on the same day, and venous diameter, area, peak reflux velocity, reflux flow volume, and reflux duration measurements were obtained. Air plethysmography was performed on 2 days, 7 to 10 days apart, with 1 measurement on the first day and 2 measurements on the second day. Values obtained from APG included outflow fraction, venous filling index, ejection fraction, and residual volume fraction. The measurements were performed by a vascular technologist blinded to the previous test results. One-way analysis of variance, the Student paired t test, and Bland-Altman plots were used to examine the statistical differences of the DU and APG parameters for all measurements.

Results: The mean coefficient of variation for within-subject measurements of all DU and APG parameters measured was less than 10%. Bland-Altman plots showed that there were no apparent trends with increasing values over a wide range for any of the DU parameters, nor were there any for the APG parameters.

Conclusions: Under ideal conditions, when measured by a highly trained technologist, both DU and APG showed satisfactory reproducibility.