Carotid extra-medial thickness in childhood: Early life effects on the arterial adventitia

Infectious diseases are associated with carotid intima media thickness in adolescence

“…Another could be a higher vulnerability of the male vasculature. Sex-specificity of vascular parameters in childhood [44,45] and potential sex-specific cardiovascular predictors have been discussed for blood pressure in boys and BMI in girls, previously [46]. In adult populations' sex differences with regard to differential impact of exposures [47,48] have been observed consistently.…”

Carotid extramedial thickness is associated with local arterial stiffness in children

“…Details for the assessment of carotid EMT have been reported previously [10]. In brief, the CardioCAPS ultrasound scanning protocol for the assessment of carotid IMT preferentially used the jugular vein as a sonographic window, allowing retrospective analysis of carotid EMT from scans with clear delineation of the jugular lumen-intima interface and the carotid media-adventitia interface.…”

“…In total, carotid EMT was measureable in the left common carotid artery in 364 of 404 participants (90%). To assess intraobserver variability, left carotid EMT was measured a second time in 17 randomly selected participants by the same EMT reader, producing a mean difference of 0.02 AE 0.04 cm, an intraobserver correlation of variation of 4.8% and an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.90 [10]. …”

“…Carotid EMT has been shown to be significantly associated with known cardiovascular risk factors in adults, including diabetes mellitus, elevated SBP and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (inverse association) [9]. Studies in children indicate that carotid EMT is associated with early cardiovascular risk factors, particularly obesity and early postnatal growth, consistent with structural modifications of the adventitia in the early stages of life [10,11].…”

Extra-media thickness and epicardial fat: Comparison of a novel carotid artery ultrasound index and a well-established cardiac magnetic resonance fat quantification method

“…Common carotid artery extra-media thickness (EMT) measurement has recently been developed as a novel ultrasound parameter of arterial adventitia [7,8]. Anatomic tissue specimens and our study in a group of high and a very high CV risk patients showed that carotid EMT was also associated with general and regional obesity with uncertain relation with echocardiography indices of EF and PF [9,10].…”