Intravascular ultrasound assessment of blood vessel morphology

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is an invasive imaging technique, characterized by the ability to depict the tomographic section of blood vessels' lumen and wall. Thus, it enables the performance of a unique in-vivo assessment of the luminal area and three-layer wall morphology, as well as atherosclerosis within the vessel. The typical composition of an IVUS image and the measurements of observed structures have been shown to correlate well with histology and angioscopy in several in vitro studies. The existing data on intravascular imaging of the aorta are scant. In this study, the preliminary results of in-vitro IVUS examination of human descending aorta morphology are presented, with reference to the corresponding histological section.