Measurement of the 3D arterial wall strain tensor using intravascular B-mode ultrasound images: a feasibility study

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) elastography is a promising tool for studying atherosclerotic plaque composition and assessing plaque vulnerability. Current IVUS elastography techniques can measure the 1D or 2D strain of the vessel wall using various motion tracking algorithms. Since biological soft tissue tends to deform non-uniformly in 3D, measurement of the complete 3D strain tensor is desirable for more rigorous analysis of arterial wall mechanics. In this paper, we extend our previously developed method of 2D arterial wall strain measurement based on non-rigid image registration into 3D strain measurement. The new technique registers two image volumes acquired from the same vessel segment under different levels of luminal pressure and longitudinal stress. The 3D displacement field obtained from the image registration is used to calculate the local 3D strain tensor. From the 3D strain tensor, radial, circumferential and longitudinal strain distributions can be obtained and displayed. This strain tensor measurement method is validated and evaluated using IVUS images of healthy porcine carotid arteries subjected to a luminal pressure increase and longitudinal stretch. The ability of the algorithm to overcome systematic noise was tested, as well as the consistency of the results under different longitudinal frame resolutions.

[1]  L. Wilson,et al.  Spectral tissue strain: a new technique for imaging tissue strain using intravascular ultrasound. , 1994, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[2]  P. Dobrin,et al.  Mechanical properties of arteries , 1978, Physiological reviews.

[3]  Guy Cloutier,et al.  Characterization of Atherosclerotic Plaques and Mural Thrombi With Intravascular Ultrasound Elastography: A Potential Method Evaluated in an Aortic Rabbit Model and a Human Coronary Artery , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[4]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Three-Dimensional Palpography of Human Coronary Arteries , 2005, Herz Kardiovaskuläre Erkrankungen.

[5]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Current diagnostic modalities for vulnerable plaque detection. , 2007, Current pharmaceutical design.

[6]  Erling Falk,et al.  Pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. , 2006, Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

[7]  Chris L. de Korte,et al.  Intravascular ultrasound elastography: an overview. , 2002 .

[8]  W. Roberts,et al.  Coronary artery imaging with intravascular high-frequency ultrasound. , 1990, Circulation.

[9]  Hui Zhu,et al.  Measurement of the transverse strain tensor in the coronary arterial wall from clinical intravascular ultrasound images. , 2008, Journal of biomechanics.

[10]  R D Kamm,et al.  Effects of fibrous cap thickness on peak circumferential stress in model atherosclerotic vessels. , 1992, Circulation research.

[11]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Accuracy in Prediction of Catheter Rotation in IVUS With Feature-Based Optical Flow—A Phantom Study , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[12]  Richard Szeliski,et al.  Spline-Based Image Registration , 1997, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[13]  T. Denney,et al.  Left ventricular motion reconstruction with a prolate spheroidal B-spline model , 2006, Physics in medicine and biology.

[14]  G Finet,et al.  Axial strain imaging of intravascular data: results on polyvinyl alcohol cryogel phantoms and carotid artery. , 2001, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[15]  Daniel Rueckert,et al.  Analysis of 3-D myocardial motion in tagged MR images using nonrigid image registration , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[16]  R. Vito,et al.  Blood vessel constitutive models-1995-2002. , 2003, Annual review of biomedical engineering.

[17]  F. Foster,et al.  Ultrasonic Measurement of Differential Displacement and Strain in a Vascular Model , 1997, Ultrasonic imaging.

[18]  R. Ross,et al.  The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis (first of two parts). , 1976, The New England journal of medicine.

[19]  Michel Bertrand,et al.  Lagrangian speckle model and tissue-motion estimation-theory [ultrasonography] , 1999, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[20]  Jacques Ohayon,et al.  Adapting the Lagrangian speckle model estimator for endovascular elastography: theory and validation with simulated radio-frequency data. , 2004, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[21]  Elisabeth Brusseau,et al.  On the potential of the lagrangian estimator for endovascular ultrasound elastography: in vivo human coronary artery study. , 2007, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[22]  Hiroshi Kanai,et al.  Cross-Sectional Elastic Imaging of Arterial Wall Using Intravascular Ultrasonography , 2001 .

[23]  J. Ophir,et al.  Elastography: A Quantitative Method for Imaging the Elasticity of Biological Tissues , 1991, Ultrasonic imaging.

[24]  M. Epstein,et al.  Cardiovascular Solid Mechanics: Cells, Tissues, and Organs , 2002 .

[25]  P B Dobrin.  Mechanical properties of arterises. , 1978 .

[26]  A. Grodzinsky,et al.  Structure‐Dependent Dynamic Mechanical Behavior of Fibrous Caps From Human Atherosclerotic Plaques , 1991, Circulation.

[27]  V. Bhargava,et al.  Axial movement of the intravascular ultrasound probe during the cardiac cycle: implications for three-dimensional reconstruction and measurements of coronary dimensions. , 1999, American heart journal.

[28]  Colin R. Janssen,et al.  Angle matching in intravascular elastography. , 2000, Ultrasonics.

[29]  C T Lancée,et al.  Intravascular elasticity imaging using ultrasound: feasibility studies in phantoms. , 1997, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[30]  I Céspedes,et al.  Noise reduction in elastograms using temporal stretching with multicompression averaging. , 1996, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[31]  N Bom,et al.  Morphological and mechanical information of coronary arteries obtained with intravascular elastography; feasibility study in vivo. , 2002, European heart journal.

[32]  S. Emelianov,et al.  Strain Imaging of Coronary Arteries with Intraluminal Ultrasound: Experiments on an Inhomogeneous Phantom , 1996 .

[33]  Hui Zhu,et al.  Estimation of the transverse strain tensor in the arterial wall using IVUS image registration. , 2008, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[34]  C von Birgelen,et al.  Simpson's rule for the volumetric ultrasound assessment of atherosclerotic coronary arteries: a study with ECG‐gated three‐dimensional intravascular ultrasound , 1997, Coronary artery disease.

[35]  Yaoyao Cui,et al.  Strain imaging and elasticity reconstruction of arteries based on intravascular ultrasound video images , 2001, IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng..

[36]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Three-Dimensional Palpography of Human Coronary Arteries Ex Vivo Validation and In-Patient Evaluation , 2022 .

[37]  Elisabeth Brusseau,et al.  On the potential of the Lagrangian speckle model estimator to characterize atherosclerotic plaques in endovascular elastography: in vitro experiments using an excised human carotid artery. , 2005, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[38]  J.R. Crowe,et al.  Displacement and strain imaging of coronary arteries with intraluminal ultrasound , 1996, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[39]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Motion compensation for intravascular ultrasound palpography , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[40]  A. Bank,et al.  Contribution of collagen, elastin, and smooth muscle to in vivo human brachial artery wall stress and elastic modulus. , 1996, Circulation.

[41]  J. Ophir,et al.  Elastography: Elasticity Imaging Using Ultrasound with Application to Muscle and Breast in Vivo , 1993, Ultrasonic imaging.

[42]  L. V. von Segesser,et al.  Systolic axial artery length reduction: an overlooked phenomenon in vivo. , 2001, American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology.

[43]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Intravascular Palpography for High-Risk Vulnerable Plaque Assessment , 2003, Herz.

[44]  Frits Mastik,et al.  Identification of Atherosclerotic Plaque Components With Intravascular Ultrasound Elastography In Vivo: A Yucatan Pig Study , 2002, Circulation.

[45]  P. Libby.  Inflammation in Atherosclerosis , 2012, Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology.

[46]  Aaron Fenster,et al.  Image-based cardiac gating for three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound imaging. , 2005, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.