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MrSuccess wrote:first thing - note who is '' all over this '' . The usual suspects .second thing - read ..... reread .... read again , if you must ... Cheerleaders post ...... it is FLOW that is the issue . FLOW

To illustrate : When one is flying ..... we see bodies of water in various shapes and dimensions . Twists ... turns ...... narrowing ..... great widths.....
from such a distance can FLOW be determined ?

Is the water shallow ? Is it deep ? It may be 50 feet wide .... but a mere 6 inch's deep ...... and thus almost stagnant .

Or . A body of water may be 5 feet wide .... but deep and raging .

MRV's are probably the high elevation evaluation ........

One must get up close ..... to measure and evaluate the FLOW Rate.

And THAT is what Dr. Zamboni and his colleagues are doing .





Mr. Success

Section 3: Flow information
Flow quantification is performed using a special MRI sequence by encoding the flow inside the blood vessels. This sequence generates two sets of images: a magnitude image and a phase image. The magnitude image shows the vessel anatomy and the phase image can be used to
quantitatively measure the velocity and direction of the blood flow. The phase image contains the phase values of each voxel, which are proportional to the velocity of the blood flow at that voxel location, For a Siemens MRI scanner; if the phase appears dark this implies flow towards
the heart. The darker the phase, the faster it flows toward the heart. If the phase appears bright, this implies flow towards the brain. The brighter the phase, the faster it flows toward the brain. If the data is from a GE scanner, dark means flow towards the brain, bright means towards the
heart. We have developed our own software to process the flow data and to define a number of physiological flow measures to represent these findings. First the user segments the vessels by drawing contours on the vessel boundaries. Then the software reads in the phase values inside each vessel contour. The software can decode the phase values to get the flow velocity of the blood flow through each voxel. Then the following
parameters are calculated: integrated flow, volume flow rate, positive volume flow rate, negative volume flow rate, positive flow volume, average velocity, peak positive velocity, peak negative
velocity, peak to average velocity ratio, average positive velocity and average negative velocity.
The first five parameters have been chosen as most clinically relevent at this time although many other measures are also available and stored for each patient.

Currently, most sites measure the flow at four different locations: 1) the upper neck level, 2)lower neck level, 3) straight and sagittal sinus, and 4) azygos vein. In each subsection (i.e., for each anatomical region), the first set of flow images contains one magnitude image, 1 to 3 phase images, and an anatomical reference image showing where the flow quantification takes place. In the magnitude and phase images, major vessels are shown and indicated by colored arrows. Five graphs are shown including; total integrated flow per cardiac cycle, flow rates in the form of total, positive and negative, and average speed coincide with the magnitude and
phase images. These allow us to determine if there are abnormal flow patterns such as no flow, reverse or reflux flow, and circulatory flow patterns (often the case for widened bulbous lower levels in the internal jugular veins). If the flow curves for a given vein fall through zero and
change direction, then we refer to this as reflux flow. However, on occasion the vessel shows flow in both directions at any given time. This we refer to as circulatory flow.

The flow quantification at the upper neck level usually takes place at the second cervical vertebrae level (C2). The lower neck level is at the sixth vertebrae level (C6). These two different levels helps us to get a flavor for the flow coming immediately out of the brain and the flow at the lower level of the neck just above the confluence of the internal jugular veins with their corresponding subclavians before the blood goes back to the heart. The lower part is perhaps the most important because that is what represents most of the venous blood escaping from the entire head/neck system. The major vessels we can see for the neck include: internal
jugular vein, common (internal) carotid artery, vertebral artery, vertebral vein, external jugular vein, anterior jugular vein, deep cervical vein, as well as the anterior and posterior vertebral venous plexus. In some cases, we can only visualize some of the vessels, and in other cases,
we can see multiple vessels of the same name (such as two right external jugular veins).

This part of the report closes with a table of flow measurements both per cardiac cycle and then translated into flow per second. Data is given for both the left and right sides separately. If there is much more blood flow in the arteries than the veins, this suggests that the vertebral plexus may be carrying that missing load. Azygos flow is also shown along with its own quantitative flow table.

cheerleader wrote:I'm sorry not everyone is able to sit down and talk with these doctors...

cheerleader wrote: It's very difficult when comments are taken out of context,

Lyon wrote:I often have to grin......despite the fact that everyone seems convinced that placebo effect couldn't possibly play a part in any of this, that the wishful thinking involved with the theory of CCSVI is so strong that all this rapid explaining away of any possible negatives insures that there is, and never has been, any way in any aspect that the theory of CCSVI could possibly get a failing grade.

That's all fine if everyone wants to concede that this is all nothing more than an exercise in self fulfilling prophecy and that any real science fell by the wayside a year or more ago.

I agree that using first degree relatives in an official study would skew results enough to not justify the cost and efforts but it sounds like Hubbard had the resources and curiosity and the results are admittedly a point of interest.

Are the results enough to credit/discredit the theory of CCSVI? NO. Are the results faulty enough to make extreme efforts to discredit/discount them as is happening in this thread right now? Hell NO! Yes, first degree relationship is a concern but Hubbard, his wife and daughter were tested and all had some kinds of obstructions. To try to explain that away and go on our merry way is the height of foolishness and after that feat any mention of "science" is just laughable.