Review of non-invasive techniques of measuring aortic pressure through the use of ultrasound.

Aortic pressure is a hemodynamic property that is needed for analysis of the cardiovascular system. Current aortic pressure techniques involve the use of invasive methods and insertion of foreign objects into the body which may cause infections, diseases, and other clinical manifestations. Therefore, a non-invasive method of measuring aortic pressure both clinically and experimentally is needed. Through the use of aortic wall motion it has experimentally been proven that aortic pressure may be found by the range of motion of the vessel wall. The wall motion may be found by the use of ultrasound and the properties of the vessel's wall elasticity. This paper reviews various ultrasonic methods for detecting wall motion such as pulsed Doppler, ultrasonic transit time and phased locked echo tracking, and moving target indicator ultrasound.