The detection of changes in the properties of the walls in blood vessels (e.g. modifications in thickness or elasticity) is a promising way for the early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (e.g. atherosclerosis), and some attempts have been made using classic ultrasonic images. However, to obtain a reliable non invasive estimation of these changes still presents many challenges that must be overcome, in particular, to achieve an accurate estimation of the vessel wall thickness, which usually

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... s associated to strain and elasticity alterations happening before the cardiovascular disease presents clinical symptom; to solve efficiently these aspects is a very difficult task. In this work, the application to vessels of a recent ultrasonic method developed by the authors for estimating wall thicknesses is described. This method (based on high-resolution power spectral density -PSD) and its algorithmic responses were tested on an arterial phantom under physiological conditions of flow and pressure, and some results are compared to those obtained using a direct-time thickness estimation and with the resolutions related to our alternative cross-correlation option shown in previous papers. A higher spatial resolution is obtained, for experimental multi-pulse ultrasonic echoes, with this PSD method in comparison to those based on conventional echography, cross correlation operators or other spectral options.