Ultrasound imaging is the primary bedside method for evaluating cardiovascular diseases. It can image moving structures in real time, and measure blood velocity or tissue displacement. As an example, carotid examination by ultrasound helps evaluate cardiovascular disease risk in patients with atherosclerotic plaque (Stein et al 2008). Of particular interest are Doppler recordings in the internal and external carotids, which allows physicians to identify and assess occlusive carotid plaques. Commonly used clinical Doppler flow imaging modalities are technically limited to scalar measures since they only provide the velocity projection parallel to the direction of
Calcific aortic valve disease is the most common heart valve disease. It is associated with a significant increase in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and independently increases the cardiovascular risk. It is then important to develop parameters that can estimate the stiffness of the valve. Such parameters may contribute to early detection of the disease or track its progression and optimize the timing for therapy. In this study, we introduce a metric representing the stiffness of the native aortic calcified valve over a wide range of stenosis severities. Our approach is based on three-dimensional structural finite-element simulations and in vitro measurements. The proposed method is developed first in a pulse duplicator; its clinical applicability is then evaluated in three patients with severe aortic stenosis. Our results indicate that the value of the proposed metric varies considerably between healthy valves and valves with very severe aortic stenosis, from 0.001 to 7.38 MPa, respectively. The method introduced in this study could give useful information regarding the stiffness of the valve leaflets with potential application to the evaluation of aortic sclerosis and aortic stenosis.
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