6G-2 A Solution Approach for Solving the Inverse Elasticity Problem for Heterogeneous Atherosclerotic Coronary Plaques

A solution approach is described for solving the inverse elasticity problem for arbitrary atherosclerotic plaques. It extends a previous Young's modulus (YM) reconstruction framework (chapters 4 & 6 in [Baldewsing, RA, 2006]) that was mainly suited for reconstruction of thin-cap fibroatheromas (i.e., plaques with a single large lipid pool covered by a single thin fibrous cap). The following extensions were made: (i) Use of a "corrected" radial strain elastogram, (ii) use of this corrected elastogram to define initial YM-distributions and (iii) use of a compounding procedure to obtain a heterogeneous YM-distribution from individual YM-reconstructions