Intravascular ultrasound imaging following balloon angioplasty

Despite its long history and reliability, contrast angiography has several inherent limitations. Because it is a two-dimensional projection image of the lumen contour, the wall thickness cannot be measured and the plaque itself is not visualized. This results in an underestimation of the amount of atherosclerotic disease by angiography. An assessment of atherosclerosis could be improved by an imaging modality: (1) that has an inherent larger magnification than angiography and (2) that directly visualizes the plaque. Intravascular ultrasound fulfils these criteria. This presentation will provide evidence that intravascular ultrasound may prove complimentary or even superior to angiography as an imaging modality. Intravascular ultrasound demonstrates excellent representations of lumen and plaque morphology of in vitro specimens compared with histology. There is very close intraobserver and interobserver variability of measurements made from intravascular ultrasound images. Phantom studies of stenoses in a tube model demonstrate that angiography can misrepresent the severity of stenosis when the lumen contour is irregular and not a typical ellipse, whereas intravascular ultrasound reproduces the cross-sectional morphology more accurately since it images the artery from within. In vitro studies of the atherosclerotic plaque tissue characteristics compare closely with the echo representation of fibrosis, calcification, and lipid material. In addition, in vitro studies of balloon angioplasty demonstrate that intravascular ultrasound accurately represents the changes in the structure of artery segments following balloon dilatation.