CCSVI Criteria

Here's a message from Dianne's husband regarding criteria for diagnosing CCSVI that I don't think I've posted previously:

Ted, this is the gist of an email that we received from Chris Willis, RVT, Coordinator of the Vascular Laboratory at the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine.  He is actually the technician that performed the color Doppler ultrasound on Dianne's IJV's last month.  He also did yours if I am correct.  We asked him to provide the criteria that EMMC use for evaluating the results of the test as they related to CCSVI.  Here is his note:

There are actually 5 criteria for CCSVI:

The 1st criteria is:  Gray scale abnormalities of the proximal internal jugular veins.

The 2nd criteria is:  Postural changes in the cross sectional area of the internal jugular vein.

The 3rd criteria is:  Absence of flow in the internal jugular veins.

The 4th criteria is:  Reflux in the internal jugular and/or vertebral veins

The 5th criteria is:  Asymmetric flow in the deep cerebral veins.  This is done via Transcranial Doppler which we do not do here.

We are not evaluating for CCSVI but checking for patency (definition = The condition of being open, expanded, or unobstructed) of the internal jugular veins.  We just follow the CCSVI protocol.

I believe you need to be positive for 2 or more criteria to be considered to have CCSVI.