Twenty-three Doppler examinations of the brachial artery were performed on 10 infants with patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). The continuous-wave (CW) zerocrossing recordings were compared with the waveforms obtained from spectral analysis (SA) of the audio signal from the CW flowmeter by means of the pulsatility index (PI). The CWPI correlated well with the SAPI (r = 0.89,
P < 0.001). The patients were easily grouped into those infants who were normal or had clinically insignificant PDA's from those with a significant PDA using the PI. Although spectral analysis can detect and prevent sampling artifacts, the CW zero-crossing detector provided clinically-useful information.