Carotid vulnerable plaques are associated with circulating leukocytes in acute ischemic stroke patients: an clinical study based on contrast-enhanced ultrasound

Figure 1. Correlations of FC-P, FC-S and FC-AUC with lymphocytes in AIS patients (A–C) and non-AIS controls (D–F). FC-P, peak of the fitting curve; FC-S, sharpness of the fitting curve; FC-AUC, area under the fitting curve; AIS, acute ischemic stroke. Correlation coefficients and P-value are given in the graphs.

Figure 2. Correlations of TIC-P and TIC-M with lymphocytes in AIS patients (A–B) and non-AIS controls (C–D). TIC-P, peak of the time-intensity curve; TIC-M, mean of the time-intensity curve; FC-AUC, area under the fitting curve; AIS, acute ischemic stroke. Correlation coefficients and P-value are given in the graphs.

Figure 3. Intra- and inter-observer variability of FC-P (A,B) and TIC-P (C,D) measurements performed in 20 subjects: Bland-Altman plots showed good agreement between measurement for FC-P and TIC-P, both by the same observer (A,C) and by two independent observers (B,D).

Figure 4. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) of intraplaque neovascularization (IPN) in carotid arteries of a patient with both acute ischemic stroke (A–C) and a patient without acute ischemic stroke (D–F). IPNs were observed in the plaque ROI (yellow arrows).

Figure 5. The automated quantification of intraplaqueneovasculization (IPN) of carotid plaque using QontraXt. (A) A manual region of interest (ROI) was placed to enclose the whole area of the plaque with IPN demonstrated in the plaque ROI (arrow). (B) Parametric imaging: Parametric imaging results into four images that corresponds to the maps of the curve fitting parameters. (C) The time-intensity curve (green-colored curve). (D) Parametric fitting curve: time-intensity fitting curve (blue curve). Numeric values of peak, TP, sharpness, and AUC were automatically calculated based on the time-intensity curve and are shown at the top of the graphs.