Direct measurement of wall stiffness for carotid arteries by ultrasound strain imaging.

Objective: The elastic properties of the carotid arterial wall have not been directly characterized in the clinical setting. Strain rate (SR) imaging is a newly developed echocardiographic method developed for imaging the tissue motion of the myocardium. The purpose of this study was to directly estimate the elastic properties of the carotid artery by using SR imaging in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).