Accurate noninvasive method to diagnose minor atherosclerotic lesions in carotid artery bulb.

Abstract

In a prospective study using a multigate pulsed Doppler system, minor (<30% diameter reduction) carotid artery lesions were diagnosed by detecting not only abnormalities in the blood flow pattern, but also local changes in artery wall distensibility. For the diagnosis of more severe lesions, additional information was obtained from disturbances in the Doppler audio spectrum. Biplane arteriography was used as a reference. The observed agreement, sensitivity, and specificity were 86.6%, 90.3%, and 88.6%, respectively, for all lesions and 85.7%, 82.1%, and 88.6%, respectively, when only minor lesions were considered, K (a chance-corrected measure of agreement) was 81.7%. If only blood flow abnormalities were used to detect minor lesions, 43.5% would be missed. Our results indicate that minor carotid artery lesions can be diagnosed noninvasively more accurately when both local blood flow irregularities and local changes in vessel wall distensibility are taken into account. (Stroke 1989;20:1336-1340

Accurate, practical and cost-effective assessment of carotid stenosis in the UK

“…28,29 Moreover, where studies were conducted to an acceptable standard, the results may not have been presented in the detail required to answer the question posed by the systematic reviewer. For example, in the systematic review described in Chapter 3, seven studies 81,92,95,114,117,119,123 did not give data in the diagnostic categories of 0-49 or occluded, 50-69% and 70-99% stenosis by the NASCET criteria or equivalent. 3 It was also not possible to explore whether the accuracy of the less invasive diagnostic tests was different in different patient subgroups, as data on test performance in important subgroups were not available.…”

Arterial stiffness is increased in subjects with hypothyroidism

“…Various techniques have been developed to assess arterial stiffness; radial artery applanation tonometry and pulse wave analysis is a non-invasive, reliable and reproducible technique providing information 0167 about systemic arterial stiffness [9][10][11], while other ultrasound techniques provide measurements of stiffness within a small arterial segment, which does not necessarily reflect the compliance of the arterial system as a whole [12,13].…”

Different Effects of Ageing on Elastic and Muscular Arterial Bifurcations in Men

“…None of the volunteers took medication or suffered from symptomatic atherosclerotic disease. In all subjects both bifurcations were screened for disease as previously described for the carotid artery bifurcation [14]: no abnormalities were found. The study, therefore, was performed on 20 carotid artery bifurcations and 20 femoral artery bifurcations in each age group.…”