Ultrasound measurement of the brachial artery flow-mediated dilation without ECG gating

The methods commonly used for noninvasive ultrasound assessment of endothelium-dependent flow-mediated dilation (FMD) require an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal to synchronize the measurements with the cardiac cycle. In this article, we present a method for assessing FMD that does not require ECG gating. The approach is based on temporal filtering of the diameter-time curve, which is obtained by means of a B-mode image processing system. The method was tested on 22 healthy volunteers without cardiovascular risk factors. The measurements obtained with the proposed approach were compared with those obtained with ECG gating and with both systolic and end-diastolic measurements. Results showed good agreement between the methods and a higher precision of the new method due to the fact that it is based on a larger number of measurements. Further advantages were also found both in terms of reliability of the measure and simplification of the instrumentation.