Quantifying Carotid Plaque Component Strain Using Ultrasound Elastography and its Association with Blood Pressure in Patients: A Pilot Study

Quantifying Carotid Plaque Component Strain Using Ultrasound Elastography and its Association with Blood Pressure in Patients: A Pilot Study | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Quantifying Carotid Plaque Component Strain Using Ultrasound Elastography and its Association with Blood Pressure in Patients: A Pilot Study Jian Cai, Feihong Yu, Shumei Miao, Yang Xu, Huangwen Yang, Heming Chen, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8344065/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Introduction. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are leading causes of mortality worldwide, with carotid plaque rupture being a critical pathogenic mechanism. While ultrasound elastography can assess the mechanical properties of plaque, the dynamic strain of specific plaque component and its correlation with blood pressure are not well characterized. Method. This pilot study retrospectively analyzed carotid ultrasound elastography images from 11 patients. Image preprocessing involved wavelet Bayesian denoising and enhanced correlation coefficient registration to minimize motion artifacts. Dense optical flow was computed using the Farneback algorithm, and regional strain was derived through spatial gradient extraction and least-squares fitting. Results. Our analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in strain among plaque components. The mean inter-frame strain ranged from 0.0007 to 0.0045, the maximum inter-frame strain from 0.0025 to 0.0454, and the cumulative maximum strain over the cardiac cycle from 0.0078 to 0.1948. A weak positive correlation was observed between systolic blood pressure and cumulative maximum strain, suggesting blood pressure may influence the mechanical environment of plaque components. Conclusion. This pilot study validates the feasibility of dynamic strain quantification for plaque components using ultrasound elastography. The identified association with blood pressure provides new directions for investigating mechanical factors in plaque progression and developing non-invasive risk prediction models. Carotid Artery Plaque Component Ultrasound Elastography Strain Calculation Optical Flow Method Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Nanjing Medical University, and informed consents were obtained from the patients. All patient data were anonymized. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8344065","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":560846353,"identity":"93a72bad-ce7d-4b6b-aad2-5d013db6f451","order_by":0,"name":"Jian Cai","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Nanjing Medical University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jian","middleName":"","lastName":"Cai","suffix":""},{"id":560846354,"identity":"5e5c70ed-6a7b-4384-8d70-0262b8fd793b","order_by":1,"name":"Feihong Yu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical 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All patient data were anonymized.\u003c/p\u003e","formattedTitle":"Quantifying Carotid Plaque Component Strain Using Ultrasound Elastography and its Association with Blood Pressure in Patients: A Pilot Study","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Carotid Artery, Plaque Component, Ultrasound Elastography, Strain Calculation, Optical Flow Method","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8344065/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8344065/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003ch2\u003eIntroduction.\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eCardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are leading causes of mortality worldwide, with carotid plaque rupture being a critical pathogenic mechanism. While ultrasound elastography can assess the mechanical properties of plaque, the dynamic strain of specific plaque component and its correlation with blood pressure are not well characterized.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMethod.\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis pilot study retrospectively analyzed carotid ultrasound elastography images from 11 patients. Image preprocessing involved wavelet Bayesian denoising and enhanced correlation coefficient registration to minimize motion artifacts. Dense optical flow was computed using the Farneback algorithm, and regional strain was derived through spatial gradient extraction and least-squares fitting.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eResults.\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in strain among plaque components. The mean inter-frame strain ranged from 0.0007 to 0.0045, the maximum inter-frame strain from 0.0025 to 0.0454, and the cumulative maximum strain over the cardiac cycle from 0.0078 to 0.1948. A weak positive correlation was observed between systolic blood pressure and cumulative maximum strain, suggesting blood pressure may influence the mechanical environment of plaque components.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eConclusion.\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis pilot study validates the feasibility of dynamic strain quantification for plaque components using ultrasound elastography. The identified association with blood pressure provides new directions for investigating mechanical factors in plaque progression and developing non-invasive risk prediction models.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Quantifying Carotid Plaque Component Strain Using Ultrasound Elastography and its Association with Blood Pressure in Patients: A Pilot Study","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-12-18 05:35:58","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8344065/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c461fbb0-1928-404a-9e60-3c4c1e339da5","owner":[],"postedDate":"December 18th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-12-19T17:07:54+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-12-18 05:35:58","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8344065","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8344065","identity":"rs-8344065","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}