Potential carotid atherosclerosis biomarkers based on ultrasound image analysis

• Published in: Handbook of Biomedical Imaging pp. 501 - 511
• Main Authors: Golemati, S., Stoitsis, J., Nikita, K. S.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, MA Springer US 2015
• Subjects: Accumulator Array; Carotid Atherosclerosis; Diseased Arterial Wall; Gradient Vector Flow Field; Gray Scale Median
• ISBN: 0387097481; 9780387097480
• DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-09749-7_28

It has been shown that computerized analysis of ultrasound images of the carotid artery may provide quantitative disease biomarkers and can potentially serve as a ”second opinion” in the diagnosis of carotid atherosclerosis. Extending the findings of previous work on the subject, a set of methodologies are presented in this chapter, suitable for application on two-dimensional B-mode ultrasound images. More specifically, a Hough-Transform-based technique for automatic segmentation of the arterial wall allows the estimation of the intima-media thickness and the arterial distension waveform, two widely used determinants of arterial disease. Texture features extracted from Fourier-, wavelet-, and Gabor-filter-based methods can characterize symptomatic and asymptomatic atheromatous plaque. Finally, a methodology based on least-squares optical flow is proposed for the analysis and quantification of motion of the arterial wall.The suggested methodologies allow the extraction of useful biomarkers for the study of (a) the physiology of the arterial wall and (b) the mechanisms of carotid atherosclerosis.