Intravascular Ultrasound for Enhanced Microbubble Contrast and Vascular Imaging
Cardiovascular diseases with vulnerable plaques in coronary arteries being a major concern. Accurately identifying and characterizing plaques is crucial for risk assessment and treatment. There is a pressing need for advanced imaging technologies that can provide high-resolution, specific visualization of plaque morphology, composition, and associated microvascular structures, which are key indicators of plaque instability. Current diagnostic methods often fall short in providing the detailed insights required for comprehensive plaque vulnerability assessment. These approaches frequently lack the necessary resolution or specificity to adequately detect the subtle features of vulnerable plaques. They struggle to effectively differentiate plaque components or visualize critical microvascular networks like vasa vasorum. Furthermore, current methods often suffer from insufficient contrast, making it difficult to isolate target structures from surrounding tissue and blood signals, thereby hindering precise characterization and early detection of high-risk lesions.
Description
This intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging system employs a radial modulation (RM) technique to enhance microbubble contrast agent detection in blood vessels. It uses a catheter-based transducer to deliver synchronized low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) ultrasound pulses. The LF pulse causes microbubbles to oscillate, while the HF pulse interrogates them during expanded and compressed states. By subtracting HF signals from these states, the system isolates microbubble-specific signals, suppressing background tissue and blood. This significantly improves imaging contrast and spatial resolution, enabling detailed visualization of microvascular structures like vasa vasorum and plaque morphology. Processors precisely control pulse timing and frequency for optimal imaging. This technology is differentiated by its unique ability to overcome conventional imaging limitations in detecting vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques. It selectively enhances contrast by leveraging microbubble radial modulation with dual-frequency ultrasound, suppressing tissue and blood signals for superior spatial resolution and specificity. Short inter-pulse delays reduce motion artifacts, and the system's tunability optimizes for microbubble properties. This allows for improved detection of plaque neovascularization and offers potential for advanced molecular imaging by targeting microbubbles to specific plaque markers, thereby enabling more precise characterization of plaque vulnerability.Applications
- Atherosclerosis plaque assessment- Vulnerable plaque risk stratification
- Targeted molecular plaque imaging
- Microvascular structure visualization
- Cardiovascular disease diagnosis
Advantages
- Improved imaging contrast and spatial resolution.- Effective suppression of background tissue and blood signals.
Detailed visualization of microvascular structures (e.g., vasa vasorum) and plaque morphology.
- Reduced sensitivity to motion artifacts.
- Enables targeted molecular imaging of plaque components.