Characterization of peripheral arterial wall motion by Doppler tissue echography: a validation study.

Doppler tissue echography (DTE) has been proposed for arterial wall-motion analysis. However, it is not known if DTE gives precise measurements of arterial displacement. Therefore, we used a pig aorta, in vitro model to study arterial wall velocities. High resolution color B-mode DTE acquisitions gave accurate estimations of velocities as compared with those obtained by a referenced wall-tracking system, with a slight underestimation of values calculated from DTE (14.4 +/- 0.1 for DTE vs 16.1 +/- 0.2 at 5 L/min output, P >.05). Excellent correlations were obtained between both methods (r(2) = 0.94, P <.001), and Bland-Altman analysis revealed no significant differences between measurements. We also compared common carotid arterial wall velocities obtained in 16 healthy volunteers by DTE and a wall-tracking system, which gave similar wave profiles. As expected, arterial distensions calculated from DTE were lower than those from a wall-tracking system (6.8 +/- 1.7% vs 7.4 +/- 2.1%, respectively, P =.02). These results indicate that DTE may be used to study arterial wall displacement.