A preliminary study of ultrasound blood imaging in the common carotid artery of stroke patients

Blood echogenicity is changed by red blood cell aggregation due to hemodynamic and hematological factors depending on a person. A stroke is known as a cerebrovascular accident due to lack of the blood flow. Hence, an ultrasound blood imaging could be the preliminary diagnosis for the stroke patient. In this paper, ultrasound images were acquired from the common carotid artery of stroke patients and the control group by the ultrasound imaging system (Voluson e, GE Healthcare, USA). The numbers of subject were 6 stroke patients and 5 healthy people for the control group, and their ages were 67±17 and 68±3 years old, respectively. The average of blood echogenicity of the stroke patients (54±8) was lower than that of the control group (96±8). The amplitudes of the cycle variation of blood echogenicity were similar for both of the stroke patient (18±6) and the control group (23±6). The preliminary experimental results showed the statistical difference of blood echogenicity between the stroke patients and the control group, and the data would be continuously collected from more volunteers (~20 people for each group) and discuss the data in the conference. [Work supported by NRF-2011-0017984.]