Carotid intima-media thickness in patients with isolated coronary artery ectasia.
OBJECTIVE
Carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) is now widely used as a surrogate marker for atherosclerotic disease. Carotid IMT measured by ultrasound has been shown to be correlated with coronary artery disease as defined by angiography. However, the relation between carotid IMT and isolated coronary artery ectasia (CAE) has not been investigated. The aim of our study was to assess this relation.


METHODS
Twenty-five patients with isolated CAE without stenosis and 25 control subjects with angiographically normal coronary arteries were included in this study. These were examined by B-mode ultrasound to measure the IMT at the far wall of the common carotid artery.


RESULTS
Patients with isolated CAE had significantly higher carotid IMT compared to control subjects with angiographically normal coronary arteries (0.95+/-0.12 versus 0.71+/-0.10mm respectively, p<0.0001). In addition, we detected a significant positive correlation between the presence of CAE and carotid IMT (r=0.748, p<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
We have shown for the first time an association between increased carotid IMT and isolated CAE, suggesting that atherosclerosis may be involved in the pathogenesis of isolated CAE in the adult population.
KTU Faculty of Medicine, Department of Cardiology, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey. scelik@meds.ktu.edu.tr
Sükrü
S
Celik
Turan
T
Erdoğan
Hasan
H
Kasap
Sahin
S
Kaplan
Ismet
I
Durmuş
Omer
O
Gedik
Abdulkadir
A
Kiriş
D000368:Aged; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D004108:Dilatation, Pathologic / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017539:Tunica Intima / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D017540:Tunica Media / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D014463:Ultrasonography