• DOI:10.1097/00004872-200201000-00013
• Corpus ID: 25809799

Carotid plaques, but not common carotid intima–media thickness, are independently associated with aortic stiffness

@article{Zureik2002CarotidPB,
  title={Carotid plaques, but not common carotid intima–media thickness, are independently associated with aortic stiffness},
  author={Mahmoud Zureik and Mohammed Temmar and Chris Adamopoulos and J M Bureau and Dominique Courbon and Fr{\'e}d{\'e}rique Thomas and Kathryn E Bean and Pierre Jean Touboul and Pierre Ducimetiere and Athanase Benetos},
  journal={Journal of Hypertension},
  year={2002},
  volume={20},
  pages={85-93}
}

• M. Zureik, M. Temmar, +7 authors A. Benetos
• Published 1 January 2002
• Medicine
• Journal of Hypertension

Objective It has been suggested that non-invasive aortic stiffness measurements can be used as an indicator of atherosclerosis. The relationships of arterial stiffness with arterial wall hypertrophy and atherosclerosis however, have rarely been investigated in large-scale studies. The present study reports the associations of carotid arterial structure assessed by B-mode ultrasound with carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity in hypertensive and non-hypertensive subjects. Design and methods Free health examinations were performed on 564 subjects (age 58.2 ± 10.8 years, 31.9% of women, 53.2% of all were hypertensive). Carotid–femoral pulse-wave velocity (PWV) was used to assess aortic stiffness. Carotid ultrasound examination included measurements (at sites free of plaques) of intima–media thickness (IMT) at the common carotid arteries (CCA), CCA-lumen diameter, and assessment of atherosclerotic plaques in the extracranial carotid arteries. Results Subjects with carotid plaques had significantly higher mean sex-adjusted values of PWV than those without carotid plaques (12.7 ± 0.2 versus 11.1 ± 0.1 m/s, P < 0.001). Multivariate analyses showed that this association was independent of sex, age, height, body mass index, mean blood pressure, pulse pressure, diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia and smoking habits (P < 0.009). PWV was positively associated with CCA-IMT and CCA-lumen diameter in sex-adjusted analysis (partial correlation coefficients (r) were respectively 0.39 and 0.42, P < 0.001 for each). However, the association of PWV with CCA-IMT, but not that with CCA-lumen diameter, disappeared after further adjustment for age and blood pressure measurements (mean blood pressure and/or pulse pressure). Conclusion This study shows that there is a differential association of PWV with CCA-IMT and carotid plaques. The nature of the independent positive association between atherosclerosis and arterial stiffness should be thoroughly investigated.