Abstract
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) begins in childhood and has a long latent period before manifesting with clinical ASCVD events later in life. B-mode ultrasound is used to measure the intima-media thickness (IMT) and to detect and quantify plaques in the carotid arteries. These techniques are noninvasive, sensitive, and reproducible measures of arterial injury, the precedent of clinical ASCVD. Carotid IMT and plaque measures independently predict incident ASCVD, can refine ASCVD risk assessment, and help inform ASCVD risk factor management. Ultrasound measures of carotid wall injury are not as powerful as coronary artery calcium (CAC) measures for predicting ASCVD risk, but may have some niche roles in clinical practice. Limited data suggest that knowing a patient’s carotid IMT or plaque burden can affect patient and physician behaviors. Advances in ultrasound instrumentation limit comparability of carotid IMT measurements from modern ultrasound images to historical nomograms, but permit higher quality images that can be used for tissue characterization and volumetric assessment of the carotid artery wall and plaques.
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Tattersall, M.C., Stein, J.H. (2022). Carotid Intima-Media Thickness and Plaque Assessment. In: Shapiro, M.D. (eds) Cardiovascular Risk Assessment in Primary Prevention. Contemporary Cardiology. Humana, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98824-1_24
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