Doppler ultrasound measurement of central artery stiffness and elasticity in cardiovascular disease

Title : Doppler ultrasound measurement of central artery stiffness and elasticity in cardiovascular disease

Abstract:

Introduction: Central artery elasticity is a measure of the artery’s response to the impulse of blood expelled from the left ventricle. The Doppler ultrasound measurement of central artery flow velocity, and its variation over a cardiac cycle, provides a measure of the artery’s response and the elasticity of the artery.

Method: The application of the physics of fluid dynamics to blood flow velocity offers a new measure of arterial elasticity, that of vascular natural frequency, which has a direct relationship with arterial stiffness. The flow velocities at specific points on a Doppler ultrasound flow velocity waveform provide vascular natural frequency at the specific arterial measurement location.

Results: The elasticity determined from the Doppler ultrasound measurement of vascular natural frequency is shown to match the stiffness reported for the same arteries using the established pulse wave velocity (PWV) approach, providing initial validation of this new sonographic elasticity measurement technique.

Conclusion: This new arterial elasticity measurement technique, ultrasound measurement of vascular natural frequency, offers advantages over the established pulse wave velocity measurement technique as follows:
a. measuring elasticity of deeply set central arteries;
b. measuring elasticity at specific arterial locations, and;
c. offers the potential of measuring central artery elasticity in clinical settings.

Biography:

Tucker serves as president of Dynamic Vascular Resolution Inc. (DVRI), an organization focused on the physics and engineering principles that underly arterial stiffness and its role in cardiovascular disease. By applying engineering-driven transmission line models to pulsatile arterial blood flow, DVRI predicts locations where pulse flow reversals, disturbed hemodynamics, and sclerotic plaque formation are most likely to occur. Such locations are measurable using pulse Doppler ultrasound. Patterns emerge at specific arterial sites and, over time, contribute to major cardiovascular conditions, including stroke myocardial infarction and other cardiovascular diseases.