Development of color mapping technique of stress distribution in unstable coronary plaque with intravascular ultrasound

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There may be several kinds of approach using intravascular ultrasound (NUS) to detect a vulnerable plaque. One of the approaches is to show a plaque portion having a concentration of excessive stress, which may initiate the plaque rupture. Various color coded IVUS imaging methods have been proposed to discriminate fibrous and fatty plaques using radiofrequency (RF) NUS signals. We recently developed a way of colorized representation of equivalent stress distribution within a plaque by a finite element analysis, which was superimposed on the regular longitudinal NUS images.' It has been shown by this method that the location of excessive stress concentration is determined by fibrous cap thickness, distribution of lipid rich area and calcified area, and that the value of stress at the surface of fibrous cap can be easily modified by the adjacent tissue properties. This suggests that all the plaques with the same fibrous cap thickness do not always provide the same vulnerability. Furthermore, we are now trying to develop a new colorized 3D mapping technique using regular NUS images to show the distribution of shear stress within a plaque surface, which may represent an endothelial modification before the rupture of plaque