Noninvasive Vascular Displacement Estimation for Relative Elastic Modulus Reconstruction in Transversal Imaging Planes

Sensors

Hendrik H.G. Hansen¹  Michael S. Richards²  Marvin M. Doyley² 

[1] Medical UltraSound Imaging Center (MUSIC), Department of Radiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, P.O. Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB, The Netherlands; E-Mail:;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Rochester, Hopeman Engineering Building, P.O. Box 270126, Rochester, NY 14627, USA; E-Mails:

关键词: strain imaging;    modulography;    beam steering;    vascular ultrasound;    vulnerable plaque;    elastography;    compounding;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s130303341

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Atherosclerotic plaque rupture can initiate stroke or myocardial infarction. Lipid-rich plaques with thin fibrous caps have a higher risk to rupture than fibrotic plaques. Elastic moduli differ for lipid-rich and fibrous tissue and can be reconstructed using tissue displacements estimated from intravascular ultrasound radiofrequency (RF) data acquisitions. This study investigated if modulus reconstruction is possible for noninvasive RF acquisitions of vessels in transverse imaging planes using an iterative 2D cross-correlation based displacement estimation algorithm. Furthermore, since it is known that displacements can be improved by compounding of displacements estimated at various beam steering angles, we compared the performance of the modulus reconstruction with and without compounding. For the comparison, simulated and experimental RF data were generated of various vessel-mimicking phantoms. Reconstruction errors were less than 10%, which seems adequate for distinguishing lipid-rich from fibrous tissue. Compounding outperformed single-angle reconstruction: the interquartile range of the reconstructed moduli for the various homogeneous phantom layers was approximately two times smaller. Additionally, the estimated lateral displacements were a factor of 2–3 better matched to the displacements corresponding to the reconstructed modulus distribution. Thus, noninvasive elastic modulus reconstruction is possible for transverse vessel cross sections using this cross-correlation method and is more accurate with compounding.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.