Reduction in Carotid Arterial Wall Thickness Using Lovastatin and Dietary Therapy

Abstract

Lipid-lowering therapy reverses the progression of early, preintrusive atherosclerosis of the carotid artery. Both cholesterol-rich and triglyceride-rich lipoproteins correlate with the progression of early, preintrusive atherosclerosis of the carotid artery. These findings, together with earlier reports of the effects of lovastatin therapy on the progression of atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries, indicate that carotid arterial far wall intima-media thickness is a useful end point for anti-atherosclerosis trials.

Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease Conference

“…14 In 2 studies that evaluated IMT measures at different time points, progressive IMT was strongly associated with coronary events. 15,16 The risk and mechanism of stroke vary by percent carotid stenosis and symptom status. For example, in NASCET, the risk of ipsilateral stroke at 5 years for patients with Ͻ50% stenosis on angiography was 18.7% and 7.8% for those with and without symptoms, respectively.…”

Manual or semi‐automated edge detection of the maximal far wall common carotid intima–media thickness: a direct comparison

“…Alternatively, for offline readings, images are acquired and stored on videotape or a digital medium and read at a later moment in time [7]. This offline reading approach is most often used in clinical trials, using either semi-automated edge detection programs [8][9][10] or manual edge detection of the ultrasound interfaces [11][12][13][14]. Semi-automated edge detection is more often applied in settings in which only the common carotid artery is examined, whereas manual edge detection is usually applied in those settings in which the maximum CIMT of multiple carotid segments is measured.…”

“…A number of studies have provided data on the reproducibility, risk factor relations and rates of change in common CIMT using automated or manual edge detection [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, comparison of results from these studies to compare reading methods is useless, because differences could be explained by many other factors such as differences in study population or scanning procedures rather than by differences in reading method alone.…”

Letter by Ntaios et al Regarding Article, "Impact of Statin Therapy on Left Ventricular Function and Carotid Arterial Stiffness in Patients With Hypercholesterolemia"

“…6 In 1996, Hodis et al studied lovastatin in dyslipidemic patients with angiographically defined coronary artery disease and demonstrated an annual IMT decrease of 0.038 mm at 2 years compared with an increase of 0.019 mm in the placebo group. 7 Similarly, the ACAPS study showed an annualized progression rate of -0.009mm in the lovastatin group vs 0.006 mm in the placebo group in asymptomatic patients with mild dyslipidemia. 8 The METEOR trial demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in the rate of progression of maximum CIMT after 2 years of rosuvastatin administration vs placebo.…”