Quantification of abdominal aortic aneurysms dynamic behavior using TDI

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is characterized by an abnormal increase of the artery diameter present a lethal risk of 90% in case of rupture. Currently the follow up is based on the AAA static size, but this is not sufficient to prevent all cases of rupture. The paper presents a system to quantify the dynamic behavior of AAAs. It is based on echo and TDI acquisitions using an abdominal probe and data post-processing. The goal is to evaluate if functional parameters proposed by the system, such as dilations due to arterial pulse, can be predictive of the AAAs evolution. The clinical motivations of the present work, the technical aspects of the system and the results obtained for volunteers, patients with untreated AAA and patients with AAA treated with endoprosthesis are presented.