Miniature probe for mapping mechanical properties of vascular lesions using acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography

Yueqiao Qu,Jiang Zhu,Zhongping Chen,Mingyue Yu,K Kirk Shung,Qifa Zhou,Pranav Patel,Teng Ma,Yusi Miao,Cuixia Dai,Youmin He

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-05077-7

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of fatalities in the United States. Atherosclerotic plaques are one of the primary complications that can lead to strokes and heart attacks if left untreated. It is essential to diagnose the disease early and distinguish vulnerable plaques from harmless ones. Many methods focus on the structural or molecular properties of plaques. Mechanical properties have been shown to change drastically when abnormalities develop in arterial tissue. We report the development of an acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (ARF-OCE) system that uses an integrated miniature ultrasound and optical coherence tomography (OCT) probe to map the relative elasticity of vascular tissues. We demonstrate the capability of the miniature probe to map the biomechanical properties in phantom and human cadaver carotid arteries.

Highlights

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in every 1 in 3 deaths[1]
The results demonstrate the feasibility of a miniature probe for the quantification of tissue mechanical properties, and represent a significant first step toward developing an endoscopic intravascular probe for acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (ARF-Optical coherence elastography (OCE))
An 890 nm superluminescent diode (SLD) source with a bandwidth of 150 nm is used in the SD-optical coherence tomography (OCT) system

Summary

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in every 1 in 3 deaths[1]. Several different intravascular imaging methods have been used to characterize the structure and properties of plaques and the vessel wall. Acoustic radiation force has been vastly studied for ultrasound elastography, including acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging, shear wave elasticity imaging, and vibro-acoustography[14,15,16]. These methods, especially ARFI, have been used in vascular tissue imaging and characterization of plaques. OCE using dynamic excitation ARF has been studied for both shear wave and compressional wave generation[25,26,27,28,29] These methods mostly focus on ex vivo image acquisition due to the size of the ultrasonic transducer and system stability. Development of ARF-OCE with a miniature probe poses challenges due to the need for high sensitivity and a large excitation force

Methods

Results

Conclusion