Key result
An image-free ultrasound system accurately measured local pulse wave velocity in vitro (RMSE 0.19 m/s) and demonstrated highly repeatable in vivo measurements in 33 human subjects.
Why the study?
Existing ultrasound technologies to measure local pulse wave velocity are sophisticated, non-real-time, and not suitable for field or resource-constrained settings.
Does an image-free ultrasound system accurately and repeatably measure local pulse wave velocity compared to invasive reference methods?
Does an image-free ultrasound system accurately and repeatably measure local pulse wave velocity compared to invasive reference methods?
A novel image-free ultrasound system provides accurate and highly repeatable real-time measurements of local pulse wave velocity, offering a potential tool for resource-constrained settings.
Should not yet change PWV assessment practice; leaves open larger validation trials for clinical utility.
Local pulse wave velocity (PWV), a metric of the target artery's stiffness, has been emerging in its clinical value and adoption. State-of-the-art ultrasound technologies used to evaluate local PWV based on pulse waves' features are sophisticated, non-real-time, and are not amenable for field and resource-constrained settings. In this work, we present an image-free ultrasound system to measure local PWV in real-time by employing a pair of ultrasound transducer elements. An in vitro study was performed on the arterial phantom to: 1) characterize the design aspects of the system and 2) validate its accuracy against beat-by-beat (invasive) local PWV measured by a reference dual-element catheter. Furthermore, a repeatability and reproducibility study on 33 subjects (21-52 years) investigated the in vivo measurement feasibility from the carotid artery. With the experimentally deduced optimal design (frame-rate =500 Hz, RF sampling rate =125 MHz, LPF cutoff =14 Hz, and order =4 ), the system yielded repeatable beat-to-beat measurements (variability =1.9 % and over 15 cycles) and achieved a high accuracy (root-mean-square-error =0.19 m/s and absolute-percentage-error =2.4 %) over a wide range of PWVs (2.7-11.4 m/s) from the phantom. Subsequently, on human subjects, the intra- and inter-operator PWV measurements were highly repeatable (intraclass correlation coefficient ). The system does not impose a demand for special processors with high-computational power while offering real-time feedback on acquisition and measurement quality and provides local PWV online. Future large population and animal studies are required to establish the device's clinical usability.
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Raj et al. (2022) studied this question. Image-free ultrasound system vs. Reference dual-element catheter (in vitro) was evaluated on Accuracy and repeatability of local pulse wave velocity measurement. An image-free ultrasound system accurately measured local pulse wave velocity in vitro (RMSE 0.19 m/s) and demonstrated highly repeatable in vivo measurements in 33 human subjects.
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