6F-4 Ultrasound Elastography for the Non-invasive Healing Follow-Up of Abdominal Aneurysms

In this paper, we propose to characterize the aneurysmal sac components and to follow the healing process after endovascular treatment of the aneurysm with a stent graft (SG). The study was performed on 11 dogs with bilateral aneurysms surgically created on iliac arteries. The healing process was evaluated on digital subtraction angiography, color Doppler display and ultrasound (US) elastography, 3 months after implantation of the SG. The elastography algorithms used are a 1D scaling factor approach, improved to avoid low signal-to-noise artifacts, and a 2D Lagrangian algorithm. Elastograms provided complementary information to other imaging modalities for healed cases (low pulsatility and aneurysmal sac filled with a solid thrombus), and for unhealed cases (endoleak in the sac associated with a high pulsatility), but unique findings were present when the aneurysm was incompletely healed. In conclusion, we found that ultrasound elastography is a good exam complementary to B-scan and Doppler to characterize aneurysms following endovascular repair