Objectives

Mechanical properties of the carotid artery play an important role in the progression of arterial disease such as atherosclerosis. An early change in the mechanical properties of the arteries can be introduced as a novel risk factor for cardiovascular events. The aim of this study is to estimate, in vivo, the elastic biomechanical properties of the internal carotid wall (ICA), from the noninvasive determination of the local arterial wave speed (c).

Material and methods

To achieve this objective, c was determined from a mathematical and physical model developed in our previous work that uses the measurement of the instantaneous blood velocity at two sites by contrast magnetic resonance (PCMR), the study having been conducted on 20 healthy, young and old subjects. The determination of Young's modulus (E) requiring the measurement of the arterial radius (R) and the wall thickness (h), we first estimated the arterial compliance (C). Then from a segmentation of the PCMR image, we evaluated R and thus the elastance given by the product Eh. Finally, in front of the difficulty of measuring h, E was estimated from a statistical study on h.

Results

Our method is sensitive to a variation of the parietal elasticity as it is the case with the age. A statistical test showed that there is a very significant difference between younger and older subjects in terms of speed wave, elastance, compliance, and Young's modulus (p<0.001). Furthermore, these results, in agreement with the reference values reported in the literature, are very promising for detecting a pathological change in parietal elasticity, as is the case in atherosclerosis.

Conclusion

Thus, the in vivo application of this technique shows its potential for clinical evaluation of arterial stiffness ICA as it is fully quantitative, non-invasive and can be performed in real time.

中文翻译：

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确定颈内动脉生物力学特性的非侵入性方法

目标

颈动脉的机械特性在动脉疾病如动脉粥样硬化的进展中起重要作用。可以将动脉机械特性的早期改变作为心血管事件的新危险因素。这项研究的目的是通过无创测定局部动脉波速（c）来体内评估颈内动脉壁（ICA）的弹性生物力学性能。

材料与方法

为了达到这个目标，我们根据先前工作中开发的数学和物理模型确定了c，该模型使用对比磁共振（PCMR）测量两个部位的瞬时血流速度，该研究针对20位健康，年轻和老科目。确定杨氏模量（E）需要测量动脉半径（R）和壁厚（h），我们首先估算动脉顺应性（C）。然后从PCMR图像的分割中，我们评估了R，因此评估了乘积Eh给出的弹性。最后，在测量h的困难面前，通过对h的统计研究来估计E。

结果

随着年龄的增长，我们的方法对壁弹性的变化很敏感。统计测试表明，在速度波，弹力，顺应性和杨氏模量方面，年轻受试者和老年受试者之间存在非常显着的差异（p <0.001）。此外，这些结果与文献中报道的参考值一致，对于检测壁弹性的病理变化是非常有前途的，就像动脉粥样硬化一样。

结论

因此，由于该技术是完全定量的，非侵入性的并且可以实时进行，因此该技术在体内的应用显示了其对动脉僵硬度ICA进行临床评估的潜力。