The assessment of flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery

Brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is a measure of endothelial dysfunction which is used to evaluate cardiovascular risk. A stand-alone video processing system based on a DSP board was developed in our lab to assess the brachial artery FMD from ultrasound images. In this paper the system is introduced and compared with the main methods and devices illustrated in literature. The available systems were analysed and catalogued according to their main features: input data, accuracy, real-time capability, and complexity. Our system was tested both on synthetic ultrasound images and in in-vivo FMD examinations so that its performances could be compared with those of the other methods.