Each year, about 800,000 Americans experience a new or recurrent stroke. The long-term goal of this research program is to create non-invasive methods utilizing ultrasound to identify plaques at high risk for initiating a cerebrovascular accident. The core of the current research project is a pilot clinical study to enroll 100 subjects who are scheduled for carotid endarterectomy (CEA. From each subject, the research effort obtains ultrasound data from the carotid plaque (or carotid artery for Normal subjects) prior to surgery and then creates histology slides of the removed plaque tissue which are used to train a statistical classifier for determining plaque composition. The main accomplishment from the prior year is the enrollment of 32 CEA subjects and thus exceeding the projected target of 25 subjects in Year 1. In addition, the normal subject enrollment and data collection was completed. The normal subject data is important for signal processing of the backscattered signals from carotid plaque.
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