Menopause is an important physiological stage in women's life. The potential association of menopause with carotid intima-media thickness as well as with occurrence and stability of carotid plaque in Chinese female population is unclear. We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study by recruiting 2,131 participants aged above 40 years from northeast of China. Carotid intima-media thick...

Impaired renal function and albuminuria, common among people with type 2 diabetes, are strong predictors of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events. However, the relationships among albuminuria and measures of calcified atherosclerotic plaque are unknown. Coronary and carotid artery calcified plaque were measured using fast-gated helical computed tomography, and B-mode ultrasonography measured co...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlation between the serum resistin level and carotid artery atherosclerosis in elderly Chinese males. METHODS The study enrolled 235 elderly Chinese males [median age 76 (range 60-97) years] scheduled for ultrasound examination of carotid artery plaque and determination of carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT). They were divided into carotid atheroscler...

Fibrous Cap Thickness and Stability of Carotid Atheromata To the Editor: We read with great interest the article by Li et al.1 The authors are to be congratulated for their excellent study. We totally agree that clinical decision-making in patients with carotid disease should take into consideration plaque morphology (eg, fibrous cap thickness) as well as the degree of lumen stenosis. However, ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Sex differences have been recognized in stroke risk; however, the sex-dependent genetic contribution to stroke is unclear. We sought to examine the sex-dependent associations between genes involved in lipid metabolism and carotid atherosclerotic plaque, a subclinical precursor of stroke. METHODS For the Genetic Determinant of Subclinical Carotid Disease study, 287 Domin...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Adventitial vasa vasorum and plaque vascularization have been established as predictors of unstable atheromasic lesions in cerebro- and cardiovascular patients. Ultrasound contrast agents provide reliable information on tissue perfusion and microcirculation. We used contrast ultrasound duplex scanning to identify carotid plaque vascularization. METHODS Contrast carotid ...

Unstable carotid plaques are associated with an increased incidence of embolic complications after carotid artery stenting (CAS). Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging assessment of the unstable components of carotid plaque such as intraplaque hemorrhage and the lipid-rich necrotic core has a high sensitivity and specificity and is capable of volumetric analysis. This is a review of the current under...

BACKGROUND The object of this study was to investigate the potential role of FGF23 on plaque stability in type 2 diabetic patients with internal carotid artery stenosis. METHODS In this retrospective observational study, we analyzed FGF23 serum level in 361 type 2 diabetic patients with internal carotid artery stenosis undergoing carotid endarterectomy and in 598 diabetic controls without car...

1 report from a large Brazilian study (n=9792) that factors they analyzed explained a higher proportion of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT; ie, gave a higher R 2 in multiple regression) than reported in previous studies. As pointed out by Inaba et al, 2 it is crucial to distinguish between IMT measured according to the Mannheim consensus (in the far wall of the distal common carotid where t...

Introduction: Atherosclerosis has been shown to be a systematic disease which often involves multiple vascular beds, such as coronary and carotid arteries . The size of carotid lipid-rich necrotic core (LRNC) and presence of intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) were demonstrated to be high risk features due to their correlations with neurovascular events . For coronary atherosclerosis, previous studies...