Fractal Analysis of Ultrasound Images of Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using the fractal dimension to characterize carotid atheromatous plaques from B-mode ultrasound images. The images were obtained from ten symptomatic and nine symptomatic subjects, Symptomatic subjects included patients with previous history, of cerebral events, whereas asymptomatic ones had no evidence of any cerebral symptoms prior to the time of the investigation, For each subject, a sequence of images was collected corresponding to 2-3 cardiac cycles. The boundary, of the atheromatous plaque was defined by an expert in three different images of each sequence, corresponding to systole, diastole and a random phase of the cardiac cycle. The fractal dimension of each plaque was estimated using a new method, namely the k-th nearest neighbors method. The results showed that the values of the fractal dimension in the symptomatic group were significantly higher than those in the asymptomatic group.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 25, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA412458
Entities
People
- G. K. Matsopoulos
- K. S. Nikita
- P. Asvestas
- S. Golemati