A NOVEL EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL GEOMETRY ASSESSMENT OF CALCIFIED HUMAN STENOTIC ARTERIES IN VITRO

To improve diagnosis and understanding of the risk of rupture of atherosclerotic plaque, new strategies to realistically determine mechanical properties of atherosclerotic plaque need to be developed. In this study, an in vitro experimental method is proposed for accurate 3-D assessment of (diseased) vessel geometry using ultrasound. The method was applied to a vascular phantom, a healthy porcine carotid artery and human carotid endarterectomy specimens (n = 6). Vessel segments were pressure fixed and rotated in 10 degrees steps. Longitudinal cross sections were imaged over 360 degrees. Findings were validated using micro-computed tomography (mu CT). Results show good agreement between ultrasound and mu CT-based geometries of the different segment types (I-SI phantom =0.94, I-SI healthy =0.79, I-SI diseased =0.75-0.80). The method does not suffer from acoustic shadowing effects present when imaging stenotic segments and allows future dynamic measurements to determine mechanical properties of atherosclerotic plaque in an in vitro setting. (E-mail: r.w.boekhoven@tue.nl) (C) 2013 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.