Multimode Ultrasound Assessment Of Carotid Plaque And Its Predictive Value For Patients With Stroke

Objective: To investigate the combined detection of carotid plaque by two-dimensional ultrasound,superb microvascular imaging,and shear wave elastography.To investigate the aforementioned detection’s predictive value for patients with stroke.Methods: Fifty-one patients were selected from Department of Neurology in The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University from May 20 to December 5,2019.The enrolled patients were under carotid ultrasound and skull magnetic resonance examination at the same period.According to the magnetic resonance examination and clinical diagnosis,patients were divided into the cerebral infarction group and the non-cerebral infarction group respectively.Two-dimensional ultrasound,superb microvascular imaging,and shear wave elastography were performed on the enrolled patients.Plaque characteristics were recorded and univariate analysis was performed.Statistically different risk factors were included in the logistic regression analysis,and receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curves were accordingly plotted.Results: A total of 68 plaques were detected in 51 patients(of which 17 were bilateral carotid plaques)1.The number of hypoechoic plaques and heterogeneous echo plaques in the cerebral infarction group was 24,the number of medium and hyperechoic plaques was 12,and this data was 10 and 22 in the non-cerebral infarction group.The probability of cerebral infarction in hypoechoic plaques and heterogeneous echo plaques is greater than that in medium and hyperechoic plaques,and the difference is statistically significant(P <0.05).2.Neovascularization was found in 13 patients in the non-cerebral infarction group and 27 in the cerebral infarction group.Patients with cerebral infarction are more prone to neovascularization,and the SMI score of the cerebral infarction group is significantly higher than that of the control group,with statistically significant differences(P<0.05).3.The average Young’s modulus of plaque in non-cerebral infarction group was 33.91 k Pa,and the average Young’s modulus of plaque in cerebral infarction group was 27.13 k Pa.The value of Young’s modulus of non-cerebral infarction group is greater than that of cerebral infarction group,and the difference is statistically significant(P <0.05).4.The accuracy of diagnosing cerebral infarction by combing two-dimensional ultrasound,superb microvascular imaging,and shear wave elastography is greater than that by the three alone.Conclusion: Two-dimensional ultrasound,superb microvascular imaging,and shear wave elastography can be used both to indicate the vulnerability of carotid plaque and to predict the occurrence of cerebral infarction.The accuracy of combining aforementioned three methods has seen an increase in predicting cerebral infarction.