Assessment Of Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaques Using Real-time Shear Wave Elastography

Assessment of the stiffness of carotid plaques usingreal-time shear wave elastographyObjective To explore the value of real-time shear wave elastography for the assessmentof the stiffness of carotid plaques by measuring shear wave velocity(SWV) in plaques.Methods A total of54carotid plaques in35patients were found with gray scaleultrasound, and all the plaques were divided into echolucent plaques, mixed plaques andechogenic plaques. Meanwhile real-time shear wave elastography was performed tomesure the shear wave velocities in all plaques. Analyse significant difference of themean SWV in echolucent plaques, mixed plaques and echogenic plaques.Results Seventeen echolucent plaques,17mixed plaques and20echogenic plaques werefound with gray scale ultrasound. With real-time shear wave elastography, the meanSWV of17echolucent plaques was1.57±0.30m/s, the mean SWV of15mixed plaqueswhich could be measured was2.51±0.43m/s and the mean SWV of14echogenicplaques which could be measured was2.99±0.99m/s. The shear wave velocities measured in various plaques showed significant difference (P＜0.001). Conclusion Theshear wave velocities measured in various of acoustic characteristics carotidatherosclerotic plaques were different. Real-time shear wave elastography could be usedto assess the stiffness of carotid plaques．...