Feasibility and relevance of compound strain imaging in non-stenotic arteries: comparison between individuals with cardiovascular diseases and healthy controls

Abstract

Abstract Background Compound strain imaging is a novel method to noninvasively evaluate arterial wall deformation which has recently shown to enable differentiation between fibrous and (fibro-)atheromatous plaques in patients with severe stenosis. We tested the hypothesis that compound strain imaging is feasible in non-stenotic arteries and provides incremental discriminative power to traditional measures of vascular health (i.e., distensibility coefficient (DC), central pulse wave velocity [cPWV], and intima-media thickness [IMT]) for differentiating between participants with and without a history of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Methods Seventy two participants (60 ± 7 years) with non-stenotic arteries (IMT 0.05). A higher CS or RS was associated with a higher DC (CS: r = −0.32;p < 0.05 and RS: r = 0.24;p < 0.05) and lower cPWV (CS: r = 0.24;p < 0.05 and RS: r = −0.25;p < 0.05). IMT could identify CVD (AROC: 0.66, 95%-CI: 0.53 to 0.79), whilst the other measurements, alone or in combination, did not significantly increase the discriminatory power compared to IMT. Conclusions In non-stenotic arteries, compound strain imaging is feasible, but does not seem to provide incremental discriminative power to traditional measures of vascular health for differentiation between individuals with and without a history of CVD.

Keywords

• Strain imaging
• Myocardial infarction
• Ultrasound imaging
• Cardiovascular assessment
• Intima media thickness