基于超声体模的颈动脉血流介导血管扩张斑块高度测量方法比较

Comparison and Measurement of Plaque Heights for Carotid Flow-Mediated Dilation Based on Ultrasound Phantom

通过设计实验对超声体模的血管扩张功能(FMD)斑块高度进行了测量,对各种测量方法做出了定性与定量分析和比较,从而确定最佳的评估方法及软件,以用于颈动脉粥样硬化临床早期诊断和治疗。以颈动脉超声体模的实际尺寸作为金标准,对FMD斑块高度进行了测量,利用超声诊断仪专用软件和自行开发的分割软件,分别使用3种不同的测量方法:横向直接测量、横向间接测量和纵向直接测量,获取斑块的高度,并进行了比较和分析。结果表明,在横向间接测量方法中,超声诊断仪专用软件比自行开发的分割软件更为准确;而在横向直接测量和纵向直接测量中,自行开发的分割软件比超声诊断仪专用软件更为准确。自行开发的分割软件与超声诊断仪专用软件的测量结果在统计学上存在显著性差异(P<0.05),但两者相差的绝对值并不大(对应0.30、0.45、0.60 cm等3种斑块高度,小于0.02 cm)。总体来说,超声诊断仪专用软件和自行开发的分割软件测量结果都接近于金标准,但自行开发的分割软件的精确性优于超声诊断仪专用软件。

The aim of this study was to find the most efficient measurement method used for the early diagnosis and treatment of carotid atherosclerosis in clinic. Measurement experiments based on the ultrasound phantom were designed to obtain the plaque heights for flow-mediated dilation （FMD）. The quantitative analysis and comparison were made among these methods. Actual heights of simulated plaques in carotid ultrasound-phantom were used as the golden standard of the measurement. Measurement experiments for the plaques heights were designed for FMD evaluation. Plaque height measurements were implemented on two individual software of ultrasonography-based specialized software （USS） and our developed segmentation software （OSS）, with three different measurement methods： transverse direct measurement （or transverse plaques height measurement, TPHM） ; transverse indirect measurement （or transverse plaques area measurement, TPAM）; longitudinal direct measurement （or longitudinal plaques height measurement, LPHM）. The measurement methods were evaluated according to the plaques heights. The measurement results between USS and OSS were statistically and significantly different （ P 〈 0.05 ）, but the means of their difference are less than O. 02 cm with three different plaque heights. For TPAM, USS has a better performance on accuracy than OSS while for TPHM and LPHM, the conclusions were opposite. In conclusion, results obtained from the two measurements are both close to the golden standard, while the accuracy of OSS is higher than the USS.