Expanding Access to Vascular Imaging: Preliminary Results from the Development of a Remote Surveillance Device

Patients undergoing surgical procedures for peripheral artery disease and carotid artery stenosis are recommended to undergo surveillance imaging at regular intervals. With >250,000 patients undergoing interventions for both annually, the number of patients requiring interval surveillance increases in parallel, placing strain on an already overburdened health system. In this study we evaluated the performance of a novel ultrasound platform prototype built for remote ultrasound surveillance.

The prototype duplex ultrasound device was developed by a team of engineers and utilizes color flow images to detect the vessel for flow velocity measurements. The device was tested on 28 healthy volunteers. The results of spectral flow from the device were compared to standard of care ultrasound measurements of the common femoral artery (CFA), superficial femoral artery (SFA), internal carotid artery (ICA) and common carotid artery (CCA).

The mean absolute difference between the prototype ultrasound and standard of care device for peak systolic velocity of the CFA, SFA, CCA, and ICA were 3.06 cm/s, 2.27 cm/s, 3.51 cm/s, and 3.55 cm/s, respectively. There were no significant differences between measurements recorded by the prototype and the standard of care device.

It is feasible to make a small, wearable ultrasound device that can collect accurate waveform and flow velocity data from healthy volunteers. Such a device has the potential to expand access to vascular imaging to low resource regions and improve the surveillance of patients after vascular surgery procedures.