Assessment of the spatial homogeneity of artery dimension parameters with high frame rate 2-D B-mode

To elicit vessel wall inhomogeneities in diameter and distension along an arterial segment, a 2-D vessel wall-tracking system based on fast B-mode has been developed. The frame rate of a 7.5-MHz linear-array transducer (length 36 mm) is enhanced by increasing the pulse-repetition frequency to 10 kHz, decreasing the number of echo lines per frame from 128 to 64, or increasing the interspacing between echo lines with a factor of two or four. Dedicated software has been developed to extract for each echo-line the end-diastolic diameter from the B-mode image and the 2-D distension waveform from the underlying radiofrequency (RF) information. The method is validated in tubes with various focal lesion sizes. Straight segments of presumably homogeneous common carotid arteries have also been tested. The temporal and spatial SD of diameter or distension reveals inhomogeneities in time or space (i.e., inhomogeneities in artery characteristics). The method can be implemented in echo systems supporting high frame rates and real-time processing of radiofrequency data.