Quantification of vascular elasticity can help detect thrombosis and prevent life-threatening conditions such as acute myocardial infarction or stroke. Here, we propose vascular elastic photoacoustic tomography (VE-PAT) to measure vascular elasticity in humans. VE-PAT was developed by incorporating a linear-array-based photoacoustic computed tomography system with a customized compression stage. By measuring the deformation of blood vessels under uniaxial loading, VE-PAT was able to quantify the vascular compliance. We first demonstrated the feasibility of VE-PAT in blood vessel phantoms. In large vessel phantoms, VE-PAT detected a decrease in vascular compliance due to simulated thrombosis, which was validated by a standard compression test. In small blood vessel phantoms embedded 3 mm deep in gelatin, VE-PAT detected elasticity changes at depths that are difficult to image using other elasticity imaging techniques. We then applied VE-PAT to assess vascular compliance in a human subject and detected a decrease in vascular compliance when an occlusion occurred downstream from the measurement point, demonstrating the potential of VE-PAT in clinical applications such as detection of deep venous thrombosis.

Date Published: 15 March 2016
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 9708, Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2016, 970803 (15 March 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2219700

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9708:
Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2016
Alexander A. Oraevsky; Lihong V. Wang, Editor(s)