Contribution of UltraFast™ Ultrasound and Shear Wave Elastography in the Imaging of Carotid Artery Disease

Figures

• 

  Figure 1. An example of an ultrasound examination with shear wave elastography of a segment of the distal right CCA in the longitudinal view with B-mode ultrasound at bottom and shear wave elastography at the top where the elastic properties of the examined tissues (carotid artery wall and surrounding soft tissues) are displayed qualitatively by benign color-coded and superimposed on the B-mode image. Red color denotes the stiffest areas with the highest elastic modulus values.

• 

  Figure 2. Another example of an ultrasound examination with shear wave elastography of a segment of the CCA, this time in the transverse view. A carotid artery plaque is visible in the wall of the CCA and displayed with B-mode ultrasound at the bottom and shear wave elastography at the top. In this figure, the elastic properties of the examined tissues are displayed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Quantitative measures are visible on the right-hand side of the picture, measured using two regions of interest, one centered over the plaque and another over the adjoining soft tissues, and an elasticity ratio between the two is calculated by the ultrasound device.

• 

  Figure 3. Comparison between conventional CFI Doppler ultrasound at the top and UltraFast™ Doppler ultrasound at the bottom while examining a segment of the CCA in the longitudinal view. UltraFast™ Doppler demonstrated excellent flow sensibility and provides a framerate of more than 80 Hz.

• 

  Figure 4. An UltraFast™ Doppler examination of the bifurcation of the carotid artery. Several measurements can be performed independently of each other with a high degree of reliability since the acquisition is made during the same cardiac cycle. In this example, spectra from the ICA (3) and ECA (2) are analyzed simultaneously, one can differentiate the ICA from the ECA on the basis of spectral morphology with ECA demonstrating a high-resistance spectrum and the ICA demonstrating a low-resistance spectrum.