A Laser-Doppler-Velocimeter using an optical fiber and its application to local velocity measurement in the coronary artery

Summary A Laser-Doppler-Velocimeter with an optical fiber has been developed to measure arterial blood velocity accurately in a small sample volume. After fundamental experiments to evaluate the accuracy of the present method, blood flow velocity was measured in canine coronary arteries.Acknowledgment. We thank Dr J. Koyama, Vice President of the Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineering of Japan, for his keen interest and continuous encouragement throughout the work. Thanks are also due to Dr H. Kita for English revision, and Dr K. Mito and Mr O. Hiramatsu for their excellent technical assistance. This investigation was supported by the Grants from the Ministry of Education of Japan (No. 521125 and No. 337049 and No. 587008).