INONINVASIVE MEASURMENT OF BRACHIAL WALL MECHANICS DURING FLOW- MEDIATED VASODILATION USING 2D ULTRASOUND STRAIN TENSOR IMAGING

摘要

A noninvasive technique to monitor the brachial wall mechanical changes during the flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD) analysis is explained. The technique uses a train of ultrasound images of brachial artery and then determines inter-frames axial and lateral displacements using the speckle tracking technique. This method provides measurements of the strain tensors in a selected region of interest within ultrasound images. This technique is applied to FMD study to measure displacements and strain tensors directly from arterial wall before and after occlusion. The results indicate significant changes in wall displacements and strains between the two cases. This study suggests that monitoring the brachial wall displacement/strains could be a substitute of tracing the brachial diameter in the FMD studies.