The objective of the Plaque package is to detect vascularisation and determine vascularized areas in atherosclerotic plaques.

The assessment of intra-plaque enhancement encounters several major challenges such as:

• risk of plaque signal contamination by contrast signals out of the vessel lumen
• dependence of measured intensity values from system settings
• very low signal to noise ratio in the plaque
• specific enhancement kinetics in the plaque vascularization

Parametric image of the perfused area of a carotid plaque and the respective numeric values.

The VueBox^® plaque package includes tools that overcome these issues. The detection of plaque enhancement relies on an automatic and adaptative threshold based on noise level making the measurements independent from settings and users. The analysis is performed on a subset of images taken from a recorded sequence within optimal time windows that help reduce contamination by the lumen.

The plaque package provides a MIP-based assessment of vascularised areas and specific quantitative perfusion parameters. Time intensity curves (TIC) from the lumen and plaque can be displayed simultaneously using different intensity scales, to allow the simultaneous representation of both curves in one graph.

Time windows selection on dual-scale graph, showing TIC from plaque and vascular lumen.

Key features:

• Specific vascularization parameters : plaque area, perfused area, relative perfused area, mean opacification
• Adaptative enhancement threshold based on noise level
• Analysis performed in optimal time windows (plateau of maximum plaque enhancement)
• Dual-scale display of time intensity curves of the lumen and plaque signals.