Vascular Plaque Determination for Stroke Risk Assessment
Abstract
Build-up of plaque inside the carotid artery results in a narrowing of the vessel supplying blood to the brain and is associated with an increased risk of stroke from the plaque becoming unstable and rupturing. On average, one American dies from stroke every 4 minutes, and 87% of people who experience a stroke or a clot in their lungs has significant narrowing of the carotid artery. Current clinical practice is to surgically remove the carotid plaque when it causes a severe narrowing of the artery. However, numerous studies have demonstrated that a large number of strokes are caused by rupture-prone plaques that have only a moderate degree of narrowing of the carotid artery. Thus, there is a need for an approach to determine the plaques that are likely to rupture. One missing piece of information that is not available clinically is the composition of the carotid plaque. This proposal aims to create an ultrasound technology to determine the composition of carotid plaque using noninvasive ultrasound measurements. This approach would be well tolerated by patients and relatively inexpensive to implement once developed. This proposal is to collect ultrasound data from subjects prior to a previously scheduled surgery to remove carotid plaque. After the surgery, the plaque is collected and processed into slides. The ultrasound data are matched to the slides in order to know what the plaque is composed. Then frequency-based analysis of the ultrasound data is performed for regions where the plaque type is known and an algorithm is created that will be able to output the plaque tissue types when provided the ultrasound data. The expected outcome of the proposed work is an innovative technology that can reliably provide human carotid plaque composition information during a standard clinical ultrasound exam. Follow-on clinical studies will investigate the power of the technology for predicting the risk of future stroke in order to guide diagnosis and choice of treatment course.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 2017
- Source ID
- W81XWH1610608
Entities
People
- David Geoffrey Vince
Organizations
- Cleveland Clinic
- United States Army