Clinical and Biomedical Role and Importance of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness And Cross-Sectional Area Among Coronary Artery Disease Subjects

Purpose: To examine the interrelation between carotid intima-media thickening (CIMT), carotid cross-sectional surface area (CSA), and coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: Eighty participants with CAD that were diagnosed with angiography (40 men and 40 women; mean age ± SD, 49.63 ± 6.96) had carotid duplex studies, and their results were compared to the same number of healthy participants (same gender and age) without CAD risk factors (49.73 ± 7.53). The participants were retrospectively selected from a database of patients that had carotid ultrasound examinations to compare their vascular remodeling. Results: Statistically, the CIMT value was significantly higher for participants of both sexes with CAD ( P < .01, R 2 = 0.787, y = 0.010x + 0.024). The participants with multi-vessel CAD had substantially higher CIMT, C-reactive protein (CRP), and SYNTAX I scores than those with one- or two-vessel CAD ( P < .05). Statistically, the CSA of the common carotid artery was notably higher among the patients with CAD than in the control group ( P < .01, R 2 = 0.753, y = 0.004x − 0.091). In addition, CRP values were statistically significantly higher for the participants of both sexes diagnosed with CAD ( P < .01) and highly correlated with CIMT and CSA values. Conclusions: The evaluation of CIMT and CSA are reasonable evaluations for calculating the vascular remodeling grade, and there is a high correlation of carotid and coronary atherosclerosis ( P < .01).