Detection and Measurement of Intima Media Thickness of the Common Carotid Artery

Atherosclerosis is a condition where the arteries become narrowed and hardened because of excessive build up of fatty substances called plaques around the artery wall. The disease disrupts the flow of blood around the body resulting in serious cardiovascular complications. The Intima Media thickness (IMT) is used as a validated measure for the evaluation of atherosclerosis. Manual assessment of the IMT results in inaccurate measurements. So there is a need for automatic identification of Intima Media with proper segmentation algorithms and measurement of IMT. To fulfill this need, an effective segmentation method, Otsu thresholding is proposed for the identification of the intima media of the common carotid artery and measurement of the intima media thickness to indicate the presence or absence of atherosclerosis. To reduce the speckle noise in the ultrasound image of the common carotid artery, Speckle Reduction Anisotropic Filter is used. This improves the detection efficiency.