Intravascular elastography of human femoral arteries: an in vitro study

Intravascular elastography is a new technique to image the local mechanical properties of the vessel wall and its pathology using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). Knowledge of these mechanical properties may be useful for guiding interventional procedures. An experimental set-up is described for assessment of the elastographic information of arteries. RF-data was acquired using a 30 MHz IVUS catheter. With this set-up, intravascular elastograms containing 400 angles/revolution with a radial resolution of 200 /spl mu/m can be determined. An algorithm, that uses a-priori knowledge of the correlation coefficient function was applied to filter the obtained data. The feasibility of intravascular elastography is demonstrated using human femoral artery specimens. Qualitative comparison of the elastograms with the echograms and the histologic sections demonstrates the potential of intravascular elastography to obtain mechanical information of the vessel wall and plaque.