Carotid artery wall dynamics captured with multi-plane high-frame-rate imaging

Plaques within the carotid artery show different dynamic behavior during fast pressure waves that propagate along the wall. These dynamic tissue-wave interactions can be captured in a longitudinal view of the carotid artery using high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging. A major disadvantage of this approach is that out-of-plane motion causes misinterpretation of the true wall motion. Here we describe a new imaging setup comprising three resp. two intersecting high-frame-rate imaging planes. Using this multi-plane imaging setup we are now, for the first time, able to capture velocities along the carotid artery wall with high temporal resolution in multiple planes simultaneously.