Detection of atherosclerosis from vessel wall vibrations using non-linear features

Steady increase in the number of patients with myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction, both of which are considered to be mainly caused by atherosclerosis, is becoming a serious problem. Non-invasive measurement of the mechanical properties of the vessel wall, such as vibratility, is useful for the diagnosis of atherosclerosis, since there are significant differences between vibration characteristics of normal arterial walls and those affected by atherosclerosis. The main objective of the current work is to extract some non-linear features from vessel wall vibrations and test them for their capability of discriminating between normal and atherosclerotic vessels.