A Novel Distal Micromotor-Based Side-Looking Intravascular Ultrasound Transducer

Cardiovascular disease has become one of the leading causes of death in China, accounting for 45.5% of all deaths in rural areas and 43.16% in urban areas. Hence, its early diagnosis is important. With the development of intravascular imaging technology, the intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is widely used. The available commercial mechanical rotary side-looking IVUS (SL-IVUS) transducers are driven by external motors that use long flexible shafts to transmit the rotation. However, when the transducer passes through a long-curved blood vessel, it easily causes the nonuniform rotation distortion (NURD) of the image. A catheter which contains a distal motor and sodium chloride (NaCl) solution is presented in this study as an attempt to solve such issues. The NaCl solution is used to connect the transducer and micromotor so that the motor can directly drive the transducer to rotate and acquire the information of the blood vessel. The results showed that the center frequency and -6-dB fraction bandwidth of the single element were 47 MHz and 98%, respectively. The SL-IVUS catheter consists of a distal motor, with speed stability and high resolution, and has the potential to diagnose cardiovascular disease. This novel structure can decrease the dimension at the top of the catheter and reduce the risks of clinical diagnosis.