title: Prevalence of hypoechoic carotid plaques in coronary artery disease: relationship with coexistent peripheral arterial disease and leukocyte number.
abstract: In coronary artery disease (CAD), a concomitant peripheral arterial disease (PAD) entails a more severe coronary atherosclerosis. We hypothesized that the severity of carotid artery disease is greater in CAD+PAD than in CAD alone. In 90 CAD and 79 CAD+PAD patients, carotid plaque echolucency was measured by gray-scale median (GSM), and the degree of carotid stenosis by routine Doppler criteria. Plaques were absent in 20 (22.2%) CAD and 8 (10.1%) CAD+PAD patients (p=0.035), while the prevalence of carotid stenosis>or=50% was 16.7% and 25.3%, respectively (p=0.166). The GSM score was 45.1 [21.7-67.7] in CAD+PAD vs 60.1 [44.9-83.1] in CAD alone (p<0.001). Consistently, hypoechoic plaques (GSM<25th percentile) were more common in CAD+PAD than in CAD patients (38.0% vs 11.4%, p<0.001). On multivariate analysis, CAD+PAD was the only variable significantly associated with hypoechoic plaques (OR=4.16, 95% CI 1.68-10.28). However, when the leukocyte count was added to the model, it showed the strongest association with hypoechoic plaques (OR=6.70, 95% CI 2.13-21.10). In conclusion, compared with CAD alone patients, those with concomitant PAD showed a greater prevalence of plaques with characteristics of instability. Thus, our data suggest that in CAD+PAD, evaluation of carotid plaque echogenicity could contribute to improve clinical decision-making and differentiate treatments for individual patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Medicine and Cardiovascular and Immunological Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy. brevetti@unina.it
authors.forename: Gregorio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Brevetti
authors.forename: Giusy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sirico
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giugliano
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lanero
authors.forename: Julieta Isabel
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: De Maio
authors.forename: Rossella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luciano
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Laurenzano
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chiariello
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D016491:Peripheral Vascular Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler