Shape of the Pulmonary Doppler Sonography Blood Flow Profile of the Congo Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) and the Influence of Heart Disease

In avian medicine, sonographic examination is an important diagnostic tool for heart diseases. Little is known about the diagnostic relevance of the Doppler blood flow profiles of parrots. In the present study, sonographic examinations of Congo grey parrots with atherosclerosis were evaluated retrospectively to gain more knowledge about their pulmonary and aortic systolic blood flow. The shapes of their Doppler sonographic blood flow profiles were quantified by the determination of the acceleration and deceleration phases. The investigations showed the differences between the aortic flow profile, with fast rising velocities, and the pulmonary flow profile, which has a round shape, in grey parrots. Diseased parrots with ultrasonographic signs of a right heart failure, such as an enlarged right ventricle and/or insufficiencies of the right atrioventricular and/or pulmonary valve, showed a significantly shorter acceleration and longer deceleration phase than parrots without heart failure or with sonographic signs of left heart failure only. The correlation of the shape of the pulmonary Doppler blood flow profile with the diameter of the left atrium, the systolic and diastolic diameter of the right ventricle, the fractional shortening of the left and right ventricle, and the mean aortic and pulmonary blood flow illustrates the importance of these sonographic parameters in the investigation of the function of the right ventricle in heart disease. Our examination showed that the shape of the pulmonary Doppler blood flow profile of Congo grey parrots provides important information about the pressure load on the right ventricle in heart diseases, which is comparable to that in small animal and human medicine.