ABSTRACT
The steady increase in the incidence of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases mainly caused by atherosclerosis is becoming a more and more serious problem (J. Steinberger et al., 2009). Therefore, it is crucial to diagnose atherosclerosis in the early stages. Clinical ultrasound examination mainly relies on changes in hemodynamics (C. Cheng et al., 2006) and intima-media thickness (J. Polak et al., 2010) to characterize plaque and stenosis for patients with overt symptoms, and routinely neglects arterial elasticity as an important diagnostic criterion. However, it is worth noting that changes in arterial elasticity may occur early in the atherosclerotic process, even before the anatomical changes of intima-media thickening become perceptible (R. Selzer et al., 2001). Therefore, evaluation of arterial elasticity may serve as a valuable clinical tool for early detection and monitoring of atherosclerosis in individuals before the event of clinical symptoms.
