福田 久也¹, 吉川 純一¹, 吉田 清¹, 赤阪 隆史¹, 赤土 正洋¹, 藤原 巍²

Hisaya FUKUDA¹, Junichi YOSHIKAWA¹, Kiyoshi YOSHIDA¹, Takashi AKASAKA¹, Masahiro SHAKUDO¹, Takashi FUJIMURA²

¹神戸市立中央市民病院循環器センター, ²川崎医科大学胸部外科

¹Department of Cardiology Kobe General Hospital, ²Department of Thoracic Surgery Kawasaki Medical School

キーワード : Intravascular ultrasound imaging, Arterial wall characteristics, Atherosclerosis

Intravascular ultrasound imaging is a new technique for visualizing arterial structures. The purpose of this study was twofold; first, to assess the ability of a newly developed 15 MHz intravascular ultrasound catheter to generate cross-sectional images in human great vessels in vitro, and second, to determine the reliability of this intravascular ultrasound system in the evaluation of human great vessels in vivo. The ultrasound scanning provided an accurate image with high resolution of the lumen structure and lumen-intima interface in all vessel specimens. The aorta was recognized as a one-layered structure, because the media of the aorta were as echogenic as those of the intima and the adventitia. In contrast, a three-layered structure was noted in the iliac arteries, due to the hypoechoic media. There was a good correlation between the planimetric luminal area on the ultrasound images and the area obtained from histologic images (r=0.97, p