Data from: Development of an intravascular ultrasound elastography based on a dual-element transducer

The ability to measure the elastic properties of plaques and vessels would
be useful in clinical diagnoses, particularly for detecting a vulnerable
plaque. This study demonstrates the feasibility of combination of
intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and acoustic radiation force (ARF)
elasticity imaging for detecting the distribution of stiffness within
atherosclerotic arteries ex vivo. A dual-frequency IVUS transducer with
two elements was used to induce the propagation of shear wave (by the
8.5-MHz pushing element) which could be simultaneously monitored by the
31-MHz imaging element. The wave-amplitude image and the wave-velocity
image was reconstructed by measuring the peak displacement and wave
velocity of shear wave propagation, respectively. System performance was
verified using gelatin phantoms. The phantom results demonstrate that the
stiffness differences of shear modulus of 1.6 kPa can be distinguished
through the wave-amplitude and wave-velocity images. Moreover, the
stiffness distributions of the atherosclerotic aorta from a rabbit were
obtained, for which the peak displacement and the shear-wave velocity were
averaged to be 3.7 μm and 0.38 m/s, respectively, in the lipid-rich
plaques, and 1.0 μm and 3.45 m/s in the arterial walls. These results
indicate that IVUS elasticity imaging can be used to distinguish the
elastic properties of plaques and vessels.