Ultrasonography of the femoral artery in six normal horses and three horses with thrombosis.

Ultrasonography of the femoral artery in the horse, including color, power and spectral Doppler, provides morphologic and dynamic information. This paper describes the use of the techniques in six clinically normal horses and three with femoral artery thrombosis. Useful landmarks for orientation are the saphenous artery and the medial saphenous vein. The lateral circumflex femoral artery can not be visualized. Recognition of the genus descendens artery is complicated due to the presence of multiple distal caudal femoral arteries. The femoral artery feeds a high resistance bed. In normal horses the peak systolic velocity varies between 50-90 cm/sec. Echoic tissue in the femoral artery lumen with stenosis, occlusion and collateral blood flow formation are features encountered in the patients.