Computer-based ultrasonic imaging of the atherosclerotic plaque in vivo

The effective potentialities of the echographic technique in characterizing atherosclerosis in vivo were assessed by using a suitably modified echographic apparatus. It allows both conventional and quantitative tissue characterization imaging to be built into the same basic hardware. This computerized system performs the analysis of radio frequency signals in order to extract a number of parameters reflecting the average properties of the tissue target. Such parameters are potentially able to detect the reflectivity properties of the tissue as well as to extract information on their architectural homogeneity and spatial regularity.