Clinical and Biomedical Role and Importance of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness And Cross-Sectional Area Among Coronary Artery Disease Subjects

Abstract

Purpose:

To examine the interrelation between carotid intima-media thickening (CIMT), carotid cross-sectional surface area (CSA), and coronary artery disease (CAD).

Methods:

Eighty participants with CAD that were diagnosed with angiography (40 men and 40 women; mean age ± SD, 49.63 ± 6.96) had carotid duplex studies, and their results were compared to the same number of healthy participants (same gender and age) without CAD risk factors (49.73 ± 7.53). The participants were retrospectively selected from a database of patients that had carotid ultrasound examinations to compare their vascular remodeling.

Results:

Statistically, the CIMT value was significantly higher for participants of both sexes with CAD (P < .01, R² = 0.787, y = 0.010x + 0.024). The participants with multi-vessel CAD had substantially higher CIMT, C-reactive protein (CRP), and SYNTAX I scores than those with one- or two-vessel CAD (P < .05). Statistically, the CSA of the common carotid artery was notably higher among the patients with CAD than in the control group (P < .01, R² = 0.753, y = 0.004x − 0.091). In addition, CRP values were statistically significantly higher for the participants of both sexes diagnosed with CAD (P < .01) and highly correlated with CIMT and CSA values.

Conclusions:

The evaluation of CIMT and CSA are reasonable evaluations for calculating the vascular remodeling grade, and there is a high correlation of carotid and coronary atherosclerosis (P < .01).