Stroke is a leading cause of mortality worldwide. One of its main reasons is rupture of carotid atherosclerotic plaques. Conventional B-mode ultrasound images and Doppler/color flow measurements are mostly used to evaluate degree of stenosis, which underestimates plaque vulnerability. Alternatively, the correspondence between multi-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features, plaque composition and histology has been well established. In this study, the feasibility of ultrasound carotid elastography in risk assessment of carotid atherosclerotic plaques is investigated. Preliminarily in-vivo results on a small number of human subjects are initially validated by multi-contrast, highresolution MRI, and it shows that maximum strain rate might be feasible to evaluate the plaque vulnerability.

Date Published: 20 March 2014
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9040, Medical Imaging 2014: Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography, 904002 (20 March 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2042756

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9040:
Medical Imaging 2014: Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography
Johan G. Bosch; Marvin M. Doyley, Editor(s)