Accuracy Evaluation in the Measurement of a Small Change in the Thickness of Arterial Walls and the Measurement of Elasticity of the Human Carotid Artery

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Vol. 37; no. 5S; p. 3101
• Main Authors: Hideyuki Hasegawa, Hideyuki Hasegawa, Hiroshi Kanai, Hiroshi Kanai, Nozomu Hoshimiya, Nozomu Hoshimiya, Noriyoshi Chubachi, Noriyoshi Chubachi, Yoshiro Koiwa, Yoshiro Koiwa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-05-1998
• ISSN: 0021-4922; 1347-4065
• DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.37.3101

For the diagnosis of the early stages of atherosclerosis, it is
important to evaluate the local acoustic characteristics of the
arterial wall. For this purpose, it is necessary to increase the
spatial resolution in the axial direction to several millimeters,
which corresponds to the size of the macular lesion on the surface of
the wall. We have proposed a method for measuring small velocity
signals on the intima and adventitia of the arterial wall from the
skin surface using pulsive ultrasonic waves. The small change in
thickness of the arterial wall is obtained by integrating the
difference between the two velocity signals on the intima and
adventitia. The elastic property of the arterial wall is noninvasively
evaluated from the change in thickness and the arterial inner
pressure. In this paper, we evaluate the accuracy of the proposed
method for measuring the small displacement. Moreover, we applied this
method to evaluate the elastic property of the arterial wall of 50
patients and 8 healthy subjects.