Real-time measurements of local myocardium motion and arterial wall thickening.

We have already developed a new method, namely, the phased tracking method, to track the movement of the heart wall and arterial wall accurately based on both the phase and magnitude of the demodulated signals to determine the instantaneous position of an object. This method has been realized by an off-line measurement system, which cannot be applied to transient evaluation of rapid response of the cardiovascular system to physiological stress. In this paper, therefore, a real-time system to measure change in the thickness of the myocardium and the arterial wall is presented. In this system, an analytic signal from standard ultrasonic diagnostic equipment is analogue-to-digital (A/D) converted at a sampling frequency of 1 MHz. By pipelining and parallel processing using four high-speed digital signal processing (DSP) chips, the method described is realized in real time. The tracking results for both sides of the heart and/or arterial wall are superimposed on the M (motion)-mode image in the work station (WS), and the thickness changes of the heart and/or arterial wall are also displayed and digital-to-analogue (D/A) converted in real time. From the regional change in thickness of the heart wall, spatial distribution of myocardial motility and contractility can be evaluated. For the arterial wall, its local elasticity can be evaluated by referring to the blood pressure. In in vivo experiments, the rapid response of the change in wall thickness of the carotid artery to the dose of the nitroglycerine (NTG) is evaluated. This new real-time system offers potential for quantitative diagnosis of myocardial motility, early stage atherosclerosis, and the transient evaluation of the rapid response of the cardiovascular system to physiological stress.