Background and Purpose: To assess the usefulness of transcranial Doppler sonography, we investigated the rate of blood flow signal recording failure in the middle cerebral artery in Japanese subjects. Furthermore, we studied the effect of increased emitted power on the rate of successful recording in some of the patients in whom recording failure had been detected at the standard transducer power of 100

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Background and Purpose-Hypertensive outpatients were investigated for C-reactive protein (CRP) and carotid atherosclerosis because the influence of CRP on the progression of subclinical atherosclerosis in hypertensives remains unclear. Methods-A total of 124 outpatients (aged 40 to 79 years) in treatment for hypertension were enrolled. They underwent repeated ultrasonographic evaluation of the carotid arteries for 35Ϯ12 months. Focal intima-media thickening of Ն1.1 mm was defined as plaque, and the plaque number, plaque score, and the sum of all plaque thickness were calculated. Results-Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that CRP, pulse pressure, and systolic blood pressure were related to the annual change of plaque number (␤ϭ0.