Ultrasonic Study Of The Correlation Between Thoracic Aorta And Carotid Atherosclerosis With Coronary Artery Disease

Background Coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, which called CHD for short, is a group of diseases, including the narrowing or obstructing of the coronary vessel lumen which leaded by atherosclerosis, and myocardial ischemia or necrosis caused by functional changes of coronary artery (such as coronary spasm). As everyone knows, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are just like the first killer who is harm to human life and health. Among organ lesions caused by atherosclerosis, CHD is the most common type. It is generally acknowledged that coronary angiography (CAG) is recognized as the golden standard of CHD among all of methods for examination diagnosis in clinical studies. But there are also some disadvantages of CAG, such as interventional damage, high cost, certain risks, non-repeated multiple examinations and so on. Recent studies suggested that CHD can be combined with intimal thickening of aorta (AO), carotid artery (CA), femoral artery (FA) in many patients and the intimal thickening would lead to atherosclerosis eventually. The known data demonstrated that artery intima-media thickness (IMT) is a reliable and easy measurement index for reflecting CHD. It was associated with multiple risk factors closely and was an independent risk factor of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the ultrasonic examination of IMT becomes a new extensive clinical method of prediction and monitoring the progression of CHD. At present, domestic and foreign studies showed that CHD is closely related with atherosclerosis of CA and FA and aortic valve calcification, but fewer reported that CHD is associated with AO atherosclerosis.Objective To study the relationship between aortic and carotid atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (CHD) undergoing color Doppler ultrasound.Methods60examinees who underwent coronary angiography (CAG) for suspected CHD and30examinees in control group were investigated by ultrasound imaging of the common carotid arteries for measurement of intima-media thickness (EVIT) and plaque formation, then calculate the incidence of common carotid plaque. Meanwhile they were investigated by ultrasound imaging of ascending aorta for measurement of intimal thickness and plaque formation, then calculate the incidence of ascending aorta.Results The common carotid IMT and incidence of plaque in patients of CHD group were significantly higher than the subjects of control group. At the same time, the ascending aorta IMT and incidence of plaque in patients with CHD were higher than patients without CHD. In the entire study population with CHD, the presence of aortic atherosclerosis had an acceptable sensitivity (23.33%) and specificity (96.67%), and carotid atherosclerosis had an acceptable sensitivity (66.67%) and specificity (56.67%).Conclusion Aortic and carotid atherosclerosis were detected by ultrasonic have a common prevalence in patients with CHD.