Non-Invasive Quantitative Imaging of Human Local Arterial Wall Elasticity Using Supersonic Shear Imaging

Arterial stiffness is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events and death. Most of existing technique need dedicated device for arterial stiffness evaluation and indirect calculation of intra arterial pressure. Supersonic Shear Imaging (SSI) is a novel non-invasive technique based on remote palpation of biological tissues that can image with very high temporal resolution (up to 10,000 images/s) and quantify the local viscoelastic properties of tissues. The investigators goal was to apply this SSI technique for arterial stiffness evaluation and local pulse wave velocity (PWV) calculation. As a first step, the primary goal of this study is to establish normal values of local pulse wave velocity and arterial stiffness (carotid and femoral) by SSI on hundred healthy volunteers.