TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward novel noninvasive and low-cost markers for predicting strokes in asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis
T2 - The role of ultrasound image analysis
AU - Golemati, Spyretta
AU - Gastounioti, Aimilia
AU - Nikita, Konstantina S.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Stroke is a serious and frequent cerebrovascular disease with an enormous socioeconomic burden worldwide. Stroke prevention includes treatment of carotid atherosclerosis, the most common underlying cause of stroke, according to a specific diagnostic algorithm. However, this diagnostic algorithm has proved insufficient for a large number of mostly asymptomatic subjects, which poses a significant research challenge of identifying novel personalized risk markers for the disease. This paper illustrates the potential of carotid ultrasound image analysis toward this direction, with ultrasound imaging being a low-cost and noninvasive imaging modality and ultrasound-image-based features revealing valuable information on plaque composition and stability. A concise report of state-of-the-art studies in the field is provided and a perspective for clinical scenario for optimal management of atherosclerotic patients is described. Challenges and necessary future steps toward the realization of this scenario are discussed in an attempt to urge and orient future research, and mainly include systematic applications to sufficiently large patient samples, appropriately designed longitudinal studies, confirmation with histological results, and clinical trials.
AB - Stroke is a serious and frequent cerebrovascular disease with an enormous socioeconomic burden worldwide. Stroke prevention includes treatment of carotid atherosclerosis, the most common underlying cause of stroke, according to a specific diagnostic algorithm. However, this diagnostic algorithm has proved insufficient for a large number of mostly asymptomatic subjects, which poses a significant research challenge of identifying novel personalized risk markers for the disease. This paper illustrates the potential of carotid ultrasound image analysis toward this direction, with ultrasound imaging being a low-cost and noninvasive imaging modality and ultrasound-image-based features revealing valuable information on plaque composition and stability. A concise report of state-of-the-art studies in the field is provided and a perspective for clinical scenario for optimal management of atherosclerotic patients is described. Challenges and necessary future steps toward the realization of this scenario are discussed in an attempt to urge and orient future research, and mainly include systematic applications to sufficiently large patient samples, appropriately designed longitudinal studies, confirmation with histological results, and clinical trials.
KW - Carotid
KW - Image analysis
KW - Stroke
KW - Ultrasound
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84884649729&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TBME.2013.2244601
DO - 10.1109/TBME.2013.2244601
M3 - Article
C2 - 23380846
AN - SCOPUS:84884649729
SN - 0018-9294
VL - 60
SP - 652
EP - 658
JO - IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
JF - IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
IS - 3
ER -