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Association between age and progression of carotid artery atherosclerosis: a serial high resolution magnetic resonance imaging study

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Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the association between age and progression of carotid atherosclerotic plaques using serial high resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Symptomatic patients who had carotid atherosclerosis with 30–70% stenosis were enrolled in this study. Carotid MRI was performed at baseline and follow-up time point (≥ 6 months after baseline), respectively. The characteristics of carotid plaque progression among different age groups (> 75 years old, 60–75 years old and < 60 years old) were compared. Logistic regression was performed to relate age with carotid plaque progression. Of recruited 84 patients, 73 (mean age, 66.5 ± 11.4 years old; males, 82.2%) with 96 plaques were included in the final analysis. Compared with younger patients, older ones had significantly higher incidence of calcification in carotid plaques (> 75 years old: 91.3%, 60–75 years old: 65.7% and < 60 years old: 55.3%, p = 0.013), greater annual change of carotid wall volume (> 75 years old: 39.0 (4.3–104.6) mm3, 60–75 years old: 28.7 (− 28.0 to 73.7) mm3 and < 60 years old: 4.8 (− 27.1–31.9) mm3, p = 0.032) and maximum carotid wall area (> 75 years old: 6.1 (− 3.5 to 17.2) mm2, 60–75 years old: 2.4 (− 4.7 to 15.1) mm2 and < 60 years old: 1.4 (− 5.8 to 6.9) mm2, p = 0.046). Age (OR 1.44; 95% CI 1.10–1.89; p = 0.009) and hypertension (OR 4.61; 95% CI 1.41–15. 02; p = 0.011) were independent predictors in discriminating upper quartile of annual change of carotid wall volume after adjusting for all clinical factors. Older patients have faster progression rate in carotid plaques than younger ones and age is independently associated with carotid plaque progression. Our findings suggest that the carotid plaques of older patients need to be monitored more frequently.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Grants of National Natural Science Foundation of China (81771825), Beijing Science and Technology Project (D171100003017003), and Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2017YFC1307904).

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Author notes

  1. Mingming Lu and Peng Peng are co-first authors and contributed equally to this manuscript.

  2. Jianming Cai and Xihai Zhao are co-corresponding authors and contributed equally to this manuscript.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Mingming Lu, Yuanyuan Cui & Jianming Cai

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, 100084, China

    Huiyu Qiao & Xihai Zhao

  3. Department of Radiology, Pingjin Hospital, Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces, Tianjin, China

    Mingming Lu & Peng Peng

  4. Department of Radiology, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China

    Lu Ma

  5. Department of Radiology, Chinese PLA Bethune International Peace Hospital, Shijiazhuang, China

    Bao Cui

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  1. Mingming Lu
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  2. Peng Peng
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Correspondence to Jianming Cai or Xihai Zhao.

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The study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by Institution’s ethics committee on research on humans.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lu, M., Peng, P., Qiao, H. et al. Association between age and progression of carotid artery atherosclerosis: a serial high resolution magnetic resonance imaging study. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 35, 1287–1295 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10554-019-01538-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10554-019-01538-4

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