Carotid Auscultation – Towards Point-of-Care Carotid Stenosis Screening

Abstract

Stenosis of the carotid artery is currentlydiagnosed using imaging modalities such as US or MRI, which require bulky hardware and highly depend on the experience of the examining clinician. In contrast auscultation can be used to screen for carotid bruits – audible vascular sounds associated with turbulent blood flow. Dynamical changes in the flow can indicate a pathological narrowing of the vessel, justifying additional diagnostic investigations. We propose a computer assisted auscultation system for the acquisition of carotid vascular sounds, as a first step towards point-of-care screening for stenosis of the carotid artery.