AtheroEdge™ 2.0 Highlights

Typically in clinical practice, IMT is measured along the far (posterior) wall of the common carotid artery bilaterally, proximal to the bifurcation and within 1 cm and 2 cm from the bifurcation to the carotid bulb. AtheroEdge™ 2.0 performs automated IMT measurements in the far wall of the common carotid artery. AtheroEdge™ 2.0 software automatically identifies multiple number of points along the carotid artery in the ultrasound images and computes IMT at these points. These multiple measurements are usable in tracking the progression or regression of atherosclerotic plaques in the carotid artery over time.

AtheroEdge™ 2.0 automatically identifies the carotid wall, segments the distal wall and provides IMT measurements for ultrasound images even with varying carotid shapes,thus providing better accuracy and reproducibility than manual calibration.

In the semi-automated measurement mode, AtheroEdge™ 2.0 allows the user to place the region of interest (ROI) manually, and then compute the LI/MA borders automatically in this ROI. The white dotted box in the images represent the far wall position and the red, green and blue boxes is the region-of-interest manually selected by the user.

AtheroEdge™ 2.0 application can process vascular images acquired from scanners manufactured by major vendors in automated and semi-automated modes. It is an intelligent system that first automatically identifies the far wall of the carotid artery followed by automated delineations of LI/MA borders with very high precision. The segmentation part of the application traces the LI/MA boundaries followed by LI/MA segmentation and reconstruction.

Intima media thickness variability (IMTV) is computed by finding the variability of the lumen-intima (LI) and media-adventita (MA) borders along a segment of the carotid artery. AtheroEdge™ 2.0 measures this standard deviation of IMT of the far carotid LI and MA walls. A carotid artery wall with a completely smooth surface will show a very low variance of standard deviation because the IMT lines are parallel, whereas a carotid artery wall with an irregular profile will show a significant variation of the IMT standard deviation. IMTV is a powerful method to study and track carotid atherosclerosis.

Lumen Diameter Variability (LDVar) is computed by finding the variability of the lumen borders along a segment of the carotid artery. AtheroEdge™ 2.0 measures this standard deviation of LD of the far carotid walls. The plaque build-up can be in the near or far walls of the carotid artery. The lumen diameter is an indication of stenosis build-up if measured accurately. Stenosis measurement is the deviation of the lumen diameter thickness from its normal course.