title: High-definition imaging of carotid artery wall dynamics.
abstract: The carotid artery (CA) is central to cardiovascular research, because of the clinical relevance of CA plaques as culprits of stroke and the accessibility of the CA for cardiovascular screening. The viscoelastic state of this artery, essential for clinical evaluation, can be assessed by observing arterial deformation in response to the pressure changes throughout the cardiac cycle. Ultrasound imaging has proven to be an excellent tool to monitor these dynamic deformation processes. We describe how a new technique called high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging captures the tissue deformation dynamics throughout the cardiac cycle in unprecedented detail. Local tissue motion exhibits distinct features of sub-micrometer displacements on a sub-millisecond time scale. We present a high-definition motion analysis technique based on plane wave ultrasound imaging able to capture these features. We validated this method by screening a group of healthy volunteers and compared the results with those for two patients known to have atherosclerosis to illustrate the potential utility of this technique.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: p.kruizinga@erasmusmc.nl.
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kruizinga
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Frits
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mastik
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Stijn C H
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: van den Oord
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Arend F L
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Schinkel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johannes G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Bosch
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Interuniversity Cardiology Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: de Jong
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gijs
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: van Soest
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Interuniversity Cardiology Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands; Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Anton F W
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: van der Steen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D014463:Ultrasonography; D059289:Vascular Stiffness / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Carotid artery; High-frame-rate ultrasound; Plane wave imaging; Pulse wave velocity; Tissue Doppler